


Love Letters and Coffee Grounds

by JLaw1105



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Writer!Lexa, artist!Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 67,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8192875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JLaw1105/pseuds/JLaw1105
Summary: Lexa wasn't sure what it was that drew her into the little coffee shop on the corner.  Maybe it was because it was less than a block away from the front door of her new building.  Maybe it was because it wasn't a Starbucks or some other large chain coffee front that cared more about profit than the flavor of their beans.  Maybe it was the warm air filled with the soft scent of coffee, chocolate and cinnamon.  But likely, definitely, it was the defiant little corner of the store that loudly rebelled against the norm.It was early November and everything around Lexa was filled with red and greens or whites and blues.  It screamed of Christmas and Hanukkah.  Of buying gifts and consumer driven profit.   But the back corner of the coffee shop was filled with oranges and reds and browns with a rather large sign written in an angry scrawl that said "It's not even Thanksgiving yet, assholes!"  There was just something about it that, to Lexa, felt poetically beautiful.A Clexa Coffee Shop AU.





	1. Lost Stars

 

> I'd be damned Cupid's demanding back his arrow  
>  So let's get drunk on our tears and  
>  God, tell us the reason youth is wasted on the young  
>  It's hunting season and the lambs are on the run  
>  Searching for meaning  
>  But are we all lost stars, trying to light up the dark?  
>  Who are we? Just a speck of dust within the galaxy?  
>  Woe is me, if we're not careful turns into reality
> 
> -Lost Stars by Adam Levine

 

Snow had dangerously layered the earth in a blinding white dust. Not enough to build snowmen out of, or to shutdown school commutes, but just enough to make the ground as steady as slippery ice and to remind the people of its presence. Winter had most definitely arrived.

The sanctuary of four walls was supposed to mean a reprieve from the frigid air outside. It was supposed to allow for gloves to be shed, for buttons to come undone, for scarves to be lost somewhere amongst the couches and chairs. But instead Lexa found herself tugging the thick coat tighter into her chest as she stared at the apartment filled floor to ceiling with boxes upon boxes of the life she had just wanted to escape. Though in her mind there was absolutely nothing about this new life that she had decided upon herself, instead an unhappy and forced participant.

The new key in her coat pocket was a tangible reminder of the new life she had found herself running towards. Or maybe it was the haunting memories of an old life that she was running from. She wasn't really sure and the inability to put words to these feelings nearly killed her inside.

It had been eight months, seven days and six hours since she had last written anything of substantial importance. And even those words fell flat as she forced herself to meet the deadline that she had postponed three times, three months to her publisher. Though the critics seemed to eat up the words as if the woman writing them was a visionary. A transformation they had called it. From light to captivatingly dark or some uppity bullshit.

She had written two, now three as of two weeks ago, best selling novels about a post apocalyptic land in Northern America. The land was rough, and its people rougher and yet the heroine of the story was still filled with so much hope and determination that readers felt that this girl alone could bring peace to a land so distraught with disease and turmoil. A land where the social issues of today mattered little and the biggest accomplishment one could achieve was surviving through the night. And yet her main character did more than just survive. Or at least she had until Lexa's world came crashing down around her.

In her third book, the story went from an impossible yet inevitable sense of hope to complete and utter domination and stoicism. It left readers wondering how the main character would bounce back after being betrayed by the woman she loved, a spy from an opposing clan sent to befriend and use her, managing to break her heart. A girl written in the likeness of her now ex-girlfriend who the heroine had been in love with since the end of book one, since Lexa had met Costia.

Lexa never really could completely separate herself from the characters she invested her life creating. She left bits of herself in every character, even the villains that made people cringe and begin to actually form a hared for. The worst parts of her personality magnified and left bare for the world to consume.

She had planned out the plot for her third book for half a year before she set fingers to the keyboard. And hope was again the basis through which all plot lines were written. But then half way through the novel her girlfriend of three years, the love of her life, her entire reason for waking up, decided that what they shared was no longer worth it.

Lexa hadn't seen it coming. In retrospect, she wasn't quite sure how she had missed it. How she didn't see the slow transition from blissfully happy to barely content. Maybe it was because for three years it was her and Costia against the world and the thought of anything else being possible hadn't ever crossed her mind.

But that was fourteen months ago and the two year lease on the studio loft in Polis that they had rented had ended and Lexa couldn't fathom the idea of staying one day longer haunted by a series of walls that held both fond memories and devastating ones. And it's why she found herself in TonDC in the cold air of winter in a new apartment whose heater had just turned on and would likely take hours to heat the room to even a livable temperature.

She had contemplated sitting in the frigid cold but her sister's voice kept ringing in her head telling her that the self-loathing-Lexa was the old-Lexa. She was supposed to be more spontaneous, leave the house for more than fifteen minutes at a time, find a reason to write again.

It was stupid, though no more stupid than allowing frostbite to claim her fingers through her not quite thick enough gloves while being indoors. She may still be self loathing, but foolish was something she was not. Her father hadn't raised a fool. He hadn't paid a ridiculous amount of money for her to attend an Ivy League school for her to ignore common sense for the sake of emotional entanglement.

She wasn't sure what it was that drew her into the little coffee shop on the corner. Maybe it was because it was less than a block away from the front door of her building. Maybe it was because it wasn't a Starbucks or some other large chain coffee front that cared more about profit than the flavor of their beans. Maybe it was the warm air filled with the soft scent of coffee, chocolate and cinnamon. But likely, definitely, it was the defiant little corner of the store that loudly rebelled against the norm.

It was early November and everything around Lexa was filled with red and greens or whites and blues. It screamed of Christmas and Hanukkah. Of buying gifts and consumer driven profit. As was a majority of the little coffee shop on the corner for the exception of a potion in the back corner filled with oranges and reds and browns with a rather large sign written in an angry scrawl that said _"It's not even Thanksgiving yet, assholes!"_ There was just something about it that, to Lexa, felt poetically beautiful.

The warm air enveloped her like a much needed hug after a very long day, not that Lexa had particularly enjoyed hugging people but some exceptions had been made. So it was more like a warm hug from her sister, Anya, that lasted the appropriate amount of time and not the amount of time Anya dragged it on just to annoy her. And there was something about the concentration of the coffee to cinnamon ratio in the air that reminded her a bit of home before her father died in war and her mother lacked any bitterness about that particular situation. It was a reminder of a very happy childhood.

"Hey, Glasses? Are you going to order something or just stand there with your eyes closed?" Lexa opened her eyes, unaware of the fact that she had closed them to bask in her nostalgia. The woman who had called out to her was standing behind the counter in a light blue apron with arms crossed in front of her chest and a left eyebrow arched high. Her dark complexion and brown hair and eyes suggested that she was of Latin descent. She was pretty with a look in her eyes that suggested she consumed weaker minded individuals whole on a daily basis. She also seemed like the type to call someone an asshole for celebrating one holiday before another one had been completed.

"Uh yeah," Lexa said as she shuffled closer to the counter. "I just want some earl gray tea with a little bit of cream."

The brunette behind the counter gave her a long look, seeming to try and contemplate something before she said in a vey serious tone. "Tell me, Glasses. Are you a homophobic, racist asshole?"

The question itself startled the writer who looked at the barista wide-eyed. "Raven!" a voice hissed from behind the coffee machine and if Lexa was being honest she would have said that she hadn't even noticed the second girl behind the counter until she spoke up to berate her coworker. And how Lexa didn't spot her the minute she walked in, she hadn't the slightest idea.

Her hair was pulled back into a blonde and messy bun at the top of her head giving her this bohemian disheveled look that suggested that she hadn't even tried at all to get it that perfect mix of flawless and haphazard that other people would spend half an hour trying and failing to create. Her skin was a smooth alabaster that seemed to glow all on its own and she was sure that poets with far more talent than her could spend hours trying to describe the beauty of it. But if Lexa was enamored with her hair and her skin, it was absolutely nothing compared to the bright blue of her eyes. A blue that would make the sky jealous and the sea powerless.

Raven, the girl behind the counter, scoffed at the blonde. "Clarke, it's a simple question." Clarke. It was an odd name. And yet her tongue wanted to taste and test the feel of it around her lips. But before she could do something stupid and give into her mouth's request, brown eyes fell back onto her. "Well, are you?"

It took a second for Lexa to remember the question that had been asked. "Well," she said, clearing her throat, "while I do believe that people are born with an inherited predisposition to slight distrust and therefore darwinistic discrimination, I wouldn't say that I believe myself to be racist."

Raven seemed to sit on this a moment, to chew it around with her teeth before nodding. "And homophobic?"

"Ray!" the barista, Clarke, hissed again. But this time Lexa paid no mind.

"Well I'm gay so I suppose being homophobic would go against my own self interests." The answer seemed to make the brunette grin widely from ear to ear.

"I like you, Glasses, I really do."

"Yeah, that's great and all," Lexa said as she looked down at her watch realizing this was the longest time she had ever taken to order a drink before, and that included all of those times in crowded bars in college during four dollar shot day. "But what does this have to do with me ordering tea?"

The question made the girl smirk. "Well, if I'm being honest, the tea here is completely shit. It would be the worst thing you've ever put in your mouth, I promise you that. I can't in good conscious allow you to order the tea."

Her honesty was rather refreshing. "So if I was a racist homophobe?" Lexa asked with a slight tilt of her head. It was a habit when she was confused and no matter how aware of it she was, she was unable to prevent the tilt that Anya had always teased her mercilessly for.

"I would have given you an upgrade in size free of charge," Raven said with a laugh. Then she turned to Clarke and said "give my nerdy, gay friend here our house special."

Lexa gawked. "I'm really not a fan of coffee," she confessed despite the fact that she was most definitely standing in what called itself a coffee shop.

But Raven waved her off. "Trust me, I have a real knack for these things. It's a gift. I assume it's a byproduct of my extreme intelligence."

"And hopefully not of your extreme humility," Lexa deadpanned which just made Raven smile even brighter.

"I'll tell you what. Since I like you so much, I will buy this one for you myself. But if I'm right, you need to submit to the fact that I'm just that damn good - in the form of compliments and praises."

It was her own curiosity that eventually led to Lexa agreeing to her terms. "You may regret that deal," the other voice said. Having said a full sentence, it sounded husky and felt pleasant in her ears. "I've learned over the years to never make any kind of bet with Raven. Is this your first time in here? I don't think I've ever seen you before."

Lexa looked up and when blue eyes met hers it was as if she had both been hit by a high speed train and as if she were being softly laid into a bed of the most comfortable fur blankets. Seeing Clarke look at Raven was a wonder, but having Clarke look straight into her eyes made her feel as if her skin and bone had been stripped away and all she had been left with was her soul, the very essence of her being. And it was in that moment that her mind began to race and her fingers began to itch and a feeling she hadn't had since Costia left returned to her with an overbearing presence, yelling out demands and refusing to be ignored.

"Can I borrow a pen?" The words were out of her mouth before she had even thought to ask them. She was sure she looked like an antisocial weirdo who had no idea how to converse like a normal human being but when inspiration struck her, all sense of decorum disappeared and all she could do was grab a pen or run to a computer and write.

The blonde looked at her curiously but she didn't ask questions of why or look at her as if she were something strange. Instead she reached into her pocket and pulled out a Sharpie handing it to Lexa without a word.

Lexa grabbed a napkin on the way to a table in the back corner of the room that had been the cause of her entering the establishment. And without any thought, any rhyme, any reason, she found herself biting the cap off of the pen and pushing the black tip to the fragile paper. Black lines flowed with so little effort that Lexa felt completely at home. Home had never been a place for Lexa. Home had always been a feeling.

_She stood there, a commander of an army, the ruler of a kingdom, powerful in all things that mattered, and all it took was one piercing gaze to have her wanting to fall upon her knees and question everything she thought she had ever known._

Her heart was pounding in her chest and her breathing was slightly ragged as she found herself staring down at the napkin on the table filled with rushed black lettering reading the sentence once, then twice before even absorbing what it was she had written. She looked at the paper as if it were a stranger that she had never seen before. A possession that did not belong to her. And yet, in that moment, it seemed to mean everything.

She was startled when a saucer and cup filled with a deep brown liquid materialized beside the napkin completely having forgotten where it was she was sitting. She slowly found herself looking up to see blue eyes curiously staring at the napkin on the table, the result of Lexa's apparent inspiration.

"May I?" Clarke asked with a very soft voice, both reverent and nervous as if she expected the brunette to yank the napkin off the table and hide it away from the world. In all honesty, she probably would have but there was something about the barista that made her slowly slide the napkin across the table to the owner of the husky voice.

She watched as Clarke picked up the napkin to read what she had written and a nervousness lit up inside of her. She forgot how much she hated watching people read her work, especially work that hadn't been read and re-read by professionals whose only jobs were to make her not sound foolish in her written word. So instead she found herself looking over the body that had been hidden by the coffee machine and that in itself was also a bit daunting.

Where Lexa was lithe, Clarke was all curves in the most delicious of ways. Her hips had clear definition as if pointing out to Lexa where it was she should be placing her hands. Her shoulders were neither broad nor wide but were rather the perfect proportion to her head size. But it was her chest that had Lexa's mouth running dry and other parts of her feeling as if she were on fire. She tore her eyes away before she could be caught staring.

"I'm sorry if I sounded rude," Lexa found herself apologizing, something she only ever did when she was nervous. "But I just..." She trailed off, not really sure how to explain what it was that had just overtaken her body. But the blonde just smiled.

"Oh trust me, that look you gave me? It spoke highly of an unrelenting spark of inspiration. I can't say that it's ever hit me as hard as it looked like it hit you, though." The response had Lexa looking more closely at the girl in front of her who had somehow came up with words she wished she had thought of before. It's when she noticed the bit of blue paint streaking the area of her forehead where her hair met skin, the red tinge of her palms that seemed more man made than natural, the white drops on her shoes that she saw the kindred spirit of the coffee goddess.

"You're a painter," she said, the realization making the blonde smile brighter which just made Lexa's fingers itch to grab a pen.

"Yeah, or at least I claim to be since I dropped out of med school to pursue the thing I loved." There was a slight blush in her cheeks as if she was unsure as to why she had just been so honest.

"Doing what you love is important," Lexa answered in reply. The blonde seemed to buzz with her response.

"That's not usually the response I get. Normally people tell me I'm foolish for leaving a stable high paying career for a life where I may have to live paycheck to paycheck."

But Lexa just shrugged. Had she listened to other people she would have barely been out of law school and she wouldn't be a best selling author. "Med school is expensive. Sounds like you saved yourself from debt."

Clarke laughed and the melody of it made Lexa's heart skip a beat. "I don't quite think that's the point they are generally trying to make."

Lexa grinned. "The proverbial _they_? Who are _they_ anyway? And what do _they_ know about love and art and being happy?"

Lexa swore she could see Clarke smiling in her blue eyes. It was physically impossible and yet she knew it to be true. Whatever it was she had said had just peaked the blonde's interest in her and that made the brunette feel nervous. The desert that her mouth made become had made it impossible to swallow the knot in her throat.

"These words are beautiful," Clarke said with her eyes falling back onto the napkin before momentarily biting her lip, causing Lexa to gravitate forward, her eyes trained way too precisely on that motion. What the hell was wrong with her? "I take it you must be a poet? Or a writer maybe. You didn't seem to break up your phrase in stanzas."

"A writer," Lexa confirmed.

"Anything I've ever read before?" The question made Lexa freeze slightly and she found herself falling into a slight panic. She had been in this coffee shop less than half an hour and she found that she really liked it here. And for her to know that so quickly was surely a sign. So having people look at her the way people looked at her when they found out who she was would ruin whatever this was that she found. There was a reason she went by Lexa Woods and wrote under the name Alexandria Woodson. It was both honest and dishonest. Just far enough from the truth to be not as horrible as an outright lie.

"Probably not."

Clarke grinned. "With words as haunting as these, I'm sure it won't be long." Then she was back to biting at her lip again and something in Lexa stirred, something she did not want to think about, something she wasn't at all ready to think about. "Do you need this back?" It took Lexa a moment to figure out she meant the napkin.

Yes. She needed it back. It was the first breakthrough she had had that made her feel like herself in the last fourteen months. Hell, maybe even longer than that. "If you want to keep it, you can have it." Who was she kidding? She was hopeless against a grin like that and eyes like those. Did anyone ever really tell this girl 'no'?

There was another bright smile on her face and Lexa couldn't help but feel her lips tugging upwards which just seemed to please the blonde even more. "Thanks! I think this might help me with some inspiration of my own. Maybe I can paint what I see in these words. I feel like I really want to."

The confession warmed something in Lexa's lower stomach. It was the idea of Lexa's art mixing with Clarke's which shouldn't at all make her feel whatever the hell it was this was, but somehow it did. Again she was lost for words. She wanted to say something eloquent, something to impress the blonde, to show her that she was smart and witty. She would have went for funny but not many people associated her with funny. That was a stretch. But eloquent, that she could do.

"Here's your pen back." Okay, so maybe eloquent was something she couldn't do.

"No, please, keep it. I don't want you to find yourself in a bind the next time your muse finds you." Then she reached out her hand and Lexa looked at it. She could feel her head tilting as she studied it, making the blonde laugh. "I'm Clarke."

Lexa's cheeks reddened, embarrassed by her own confusion. Maybe she didn't know how to act like a normal human even without the compelling need to write. "Lexa," she said trying to ignore the fact that her hand felt like it had been consumed by fire where their skin touched when they shook hands to cement their official meeting. Her hands were smooth and soft and she found herself wondering how they would feel running up the insides of her thighs. She practically yanked her hand away in an attempt to yank herself from her thoughts.

"Well it was nice to meet you, Lexa. I better get back to my shift but hopefully we can talk again soon?" Lexa nodded and the girl smiled before she walked away.

Left alone to her own thoughts, she couldn't quite tell what it was that had just happened. What she could tell you was that her coffee wasn't at all hot when she finally took her first drink. But it was warm and it coated her tongue with the perfect notes of sweet and bitter. Even just warm it seemed to heat her insides up to help combat the cold outside, though she couldn't remember the feeling of ever being cold after having met Clarke.

She could tell you that this coffee was perhaps one of the best things she had ever had in her entire life. Though she honestly had no idea if that had anything to do with the coffee itself or if it had everything to do with the artist barista that had served it to her.

She stayed for another thirty minutes before leaving to battle the cold. "Well, Glasses, we had a deal. What did you think?"

Lexa was somehow aware that she didn't have to tell the girl what she thought, she already knew. "You truly have a gift, Apron." She could have cursed herself for not having a better name to call the girl at the counter. The woman had chosen to zero in on Lexa's black rimmed glasses. Lexa couldn't think of a thing for Raven other than her blue apron.

Raven snorted. "And here Clarke said you were some great writer." The statement made Lexa blush before she attempted to hide her face in her scarf and brave the walk home.

It was cold in her apartment but at least it was bearable. And for the first time in over eight months, she sat down at her computer and wrote. It was only a page but it made all the difference.

 

* * *

 

She was a creature of habit, a fan of routine. It's why even when her life had fallen apart, her neighbors knew that if they looked outside at 6:30 in the morning they would find her running towards the corner to return an hour and a half later. It was why the sandwich shop down the street from her old apartment in Polis knew that she would be there every Monday at half past noon to order the same turkey club and why they had just prepared it for her and had it ready by the time she walked in.

It was why for the last two weeks she had found herself in the little coffee shop, Arkadia, four days a week. From three to five on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and from eight to ten on Sunday. She told herself that the times she chose had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Clarke mentioned that she only did afternoon to evening shifts during the week, or that she opened on Sundays. It was because these were times where the shop was relatively quiet, where she could focus and relax. She didn't have to think about the fact that she was drawn to the blonde more than she wanted to be as long as she played into her own delusions.

And she wasn't the only regular that came in, wasn't the only creature of habit. There was an Asian kid who slumped over his computer in the corner of the shop every Monday and Wednesday, furiously typing away from the moment he sat down and hadn't usually stopped by the time Lexa left. She read from the scrawl on his cup one day when he had ordered a coffee to go that his name was Monty. Raven called him "Neo", she assumed from the Matrix.

And like clockwork, another man seemed to always appear on the days Monty was in. Miller was always written on his to-go cups and he stared fondly at the computer geek in the corner for the entire duration that his coffee was being made. Clarke seemed to take her sweet time making Miller's coffee every afternoon he came in, understanding that the man hardly came in for coffee at all.

There was a rather boisterous girl, Octavia, who also worked at the coffee shop though her schedule seemed to end an hour into Clarke's shift, just in time for Raven to arrive. And Lexa began wondering whether or not this coffee shop hired workers from modeling agencies. Even the man, Lincoln, who worked alongside Octavia was quite attractive. Lexa may not find him sexy due to her own disposition, but even she appreciated his rugged handsomeness. And so did Octavia, it seemed, who fawned over him greatly. What was even more entertaining was how enraptured Lincoln was with her. And yet they floated around one another, always pining and never quite reaching. Like best friends unaware the the other was also in love with them too. Both poetic and tragic. Lexa's favorite type of story.

"Hey, Bookworm. You're right on time! Another house special?"

"I have a name, Raven. You know it and yet you refuse to use it." Lexa sighed and it came out annoyed. And she was, kind of. A part of her knew that she would miss the day that the girl who favored the cash register work would stop referring to her by things she knew about her and instead began with friendly formalities.

"There's just no winning with that one, Lex." Now Clarke, on the other hand? Lexa's name from Clarke's mouth may as well have been sung by angels. If she ever had to stop hearing her name spoken by those lips she was sure she would spend the rest of her life found wanting.

Lexa found herself smiling, something she hadn't been used to. Smiling in reaction to someone's presence hadn't even happened with Costia. Lexa was her father's daughter. He had been a general in the army and while he was loving and caring, his love was always shown by the actions he took and not on the faces he made. Alexander Woods was a stoic man, a man of few words but with the biggest heart Lexa had ever witnessed.

"Again I was inspired by your writing Monday," Clarke continued as she handed over the to-go cup to Lexa with a shy grin. Normally patrons that sat in the shop were all given ceramic mugs to enjoy their drinks in but Lexa had yet to receive another one of those since the first week she had come to the shop. Lexa was now a regular and Clarke could predict the times and days that she would be in.

So as it went, Lexa would head into the coffee shop. Raven would refuse to call her by her name. Then Clarke would hand her a cup that she had drawn something on, usually something involving the sentences that Lexa had written the last time she had been there. Then Clarke would hand her an empty quarter sheet of paper along with a wink saying that she couldn't wait to read what Lexa wrote next.

It seemed that her inspiration the first night Lexa had walked into the front doors of Arkadia returned with each and every visit. In fact she no longer entered the shop without a pen and a notebook. Two chapters of her next book had already been completed. But she would never leave without writing at least one sentence on the paper Clarke had given her and they would spend the last fifteen minutes of her time there talking about what she had written, or art that the blonde enjoyed, or things about the city they discovered.

They never talked about anything personal. And talking to Clarke was simple and easy and Lexa found that being around the blonde that she knew so little about made her feel warm and welcome. What did it mean that things had become so easy? What did it mean that she found herself laughing more and smiling often?

She contemplated this in the back of the store where come tomorrow the sign about Thanksgiving would no longer be relevant and a little piece of consistency for her would change. Her cup today held a beautiful rendition of a swallow flying free, having escaped the open door of a cage. Two days ago she had felt a sense of freedom when she had wrote. Today, however, she felt more tied down, more aware that things outside of the bubble she had made were fragile.

Maybe it was the fact that Thanksgiving was tomorrow and her only options were to have dinner with Anya and her girlfriend, whom Lexa hated, or to have Chinese takeout alone in her large and empty apartment. This time last year was a disaster. She had spent the holidays locked inside staring at pictures of her and Costia as she drank herself into oblivion. She had called the raven haired goddess who had broken her heart who then proceeded to tell her to pull herself together. How much differently could this year really be?

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of Clarke's laughter filling the shop around her and Lexa couldn't help but close her eyes and let the sounds of it surround her and comfort her. To let it lure her back into the safety of this coffee shop bubble. She imagined what it would be like to be here during the holiday tomorrow instead, drinking the only coffee she had ever really enjoyed and talking art and theory with the blonde haired woman who seemed to bewitch her.

But when the laughter stopped, so did the fantasy. The shop would be closed for Thanksgiving and she doubted she would find time to see the blonde the day after, as it was the most crowded shopping day of the year and likely would have the little shop on the corner filled to the brim with new customers. And even if it were open Thanksgiving she was sure that Clarke wouldn't want to see her the way she needed to see Clarke. She sighed.

_It didn't matter what she did or how highly her people regarded her. She could have saved the world, brought about peace and yet she would never be enough. The Sky Girl deserved more than she could offer. She was the ground, the dirt, the worms in the soil and it would never be enough for the stars above._

Lexa looked at the paper, read over the words and found herself defeated by the elegant scrawl. So much so that she couldn't help but push the piece of paper away from her, unable to bear the thoughts of her emotions for one second longer. Her good mood was spoiled and she could do nothing more than drink her coffee and stare deeply into the dwindling cup looking for answers. Half empty? Half full? All she knew was that it was slowly disappearing.

"Is there anything more toxic than the belief that you're not good enough? Or the idea that someone else is somehow worth more?"

Lexa hadn't even noticed the girl who had taken the seat across from her and was surprised when she looked up to see blue eyes looking sadly at the paper in her hands as her eyebrows furrowed together. Most of her writing the last two weeks had been hopeful, more whimsical. Two things she couldn't feel at the moment with the holidays barreling down on her.

"Is it toxic even if it's the truth?" Lexa found herself thinking out loud, Costia filling her thoughts. After all, if Lexa had been enough, surely the other woman would have stayed. Was it not her own inadequacies that left her empty and broken hearted?

"That statement implies that one person is generally more deserving than the other. But life doesn't really work that way, does it? There is no black and white. There is only unlimited variations of gray."

Clarke slowly placed the paper back onto the table and Lexa could feel those blue eyes searching her own as if hoping to see something in them. For what, Lexa wasn't quite sure. "Are you saying that you've never been with someone who you felt deserved more than you could give them?"

Those blue eyes seemed to narrow slightly and her jaw clicked shut, working on some memory that made her seem far away, though if only for a moment. "If you're with someone who makes you feel like you aren't enough, then it is them who isn't worthy of your affections. Life is too short to live your life tied to someone who is too self involved to see your worth." She spat the last statement with so much conviction that Lexa's fist tightened in her lap, as if eager to find the person who had made Clarke feel this way. Someone doesn't say things that way unless they have found their own answers the hard way.

"And what if they don't make you feel that way until it becomes the truth? I mean, what if you have this perfect relationship and everything is great and wonderful and then one day it slowly starts to go downhill? Clearly something went wrong. Maybe you stopped trying as hard as you used to, or you stopped noticing the things that made them fall in love with you. And then one day you just stop being enough."

And that's what happened, surely it must have been because Costia had called their break-up a long time coming and Lexa was completely blindsided by it. _"Honestly, Lexie, how can you write so eloquently about love and happiness and not see that both things have been missing from this relationship for months?"_ Surely that's what happened. Lexa stopped being enough.

There must have been something in Lexa's tone that turned the angry gaze in Clarke's eyes to a soft understanding. "Relationships end. It sucks but the truth of the matter is that most relationships end and far too often people blame either the other person completely or they just blame themselves. The truth of the matter is that it's no one's fault. And if you have to place blame then it's likely a combination of both people. I'm not a saint and I've definitely never dated one. And I have to tell you, I doubt you ever dated one either."

Normally such assumptions made about herself would anger the brunette. Normally she would lash out and say that the other person had no idea what they were talking about. But there was nothing about what the blonde made her feel that was at all normal. Instead she found herself nodding as Raven called Clarke back to the coffee machine and the barista slipped the piece of paper back into her pocket before placing a reassuring hand on the writer's shoulder.

Her chest clenched at the contact as a searing heat spread all around her arm and torso, no place hotter than the spot where her hand rested. She had every desire to drop her head and nuzzle her cheek into the comforting knuckles of her hand but before her body could react the hand was gone and Clarke along with it.

The words echoed over and over in her mind as she left the coffee shop five minutes later without a word to anyone, though with the busy rush of people that had come in, Lexa doubted that either Clarke or Raven had noticed. Instead she walked through the frigid air with her coffee cup in hand until she reached her apartment.

She was a creature of habit. It's why she needed no thought as she walked into the kitchen and washed out the paper cup, drying it before walking it over to place it with the growing collection of cups with a variation of drawings that had been given to her. She couldn't being herself to throw them away, not when the ink that had been placed upon them had been done with so much skill that Lexa could almost see the words she had written coming to life. And again she thought of the words she had written today and the words Clarke had said.

She had never allowed herself to think that their breakup could have been anyone's fault but her own. She was the one who had messed up, she was the one that ruined the best thing she had ever had. But maybe that wasn't true.

She sat in the chair in her living room as she stared at the only unpacked box that had remained. "Costia" had been written along its side and in it contained the remains of their life together, the items she assumed she would sort through while she drank come tomorrow.

Clarke was right. Costia wasn't a saint. She was quick to be annoyed. She had no problem living off the money they made off of Lexa's books but was often impatient when she had to wait on Lexa when she got into one of her writing moods. And she was not the least bit understanding during times that revolved around deadlines.

Costia was quick to jealousy. Lexa couldn't talk to another girl without being glared at or without a series of twenty questions being asked right after. To the point where Lexa avoided being anywhere that she could be seen alone with one of her friends. One on one's no longer existed and her life around her friends slowly and inevitably became nonexistent.

And their sex life? During their last month it was no longer there. A bright contrast from the days when it seemed that neither one of them could keep their hands off one another. But the truth of the matter was, Lexa tried to make herself interested but she just couldn't. And maybe, just maybe that had just as much to do with Costia as it did Lexa. And maybe their breakup was Lexa's fault, but maybe it was Costia's fault too.

 

* * *

 

"Is there a reason that you have a weird collection of coffee cups on the top shelf of your bookcase where you normally store your most favorite books?"

Lexa looked away from scooping out takeout containers filled with noddles and beef onto actual ceramic plates - you know, to make the meal seem less pathetic - to see Anya standing at the bookshelf with a coffee cup in her hand. Lexa could only see about a tenth of the drawing but she had stared at them all long enough to memorize them and she knew without the slightest of doubts that it was the cup that contained a dagger drawn with such realism that Lexa could swear that it almost seemed to spin against the drawn on finger that held it upright. And Lexa swore that if she could somehow remove the hand from the drawing, the metal would come clattering down.

"The art is really well drawn," Lexa answered. It was the reason she continued to tell herself why it was that she kept them, that it had nothing to do with the barista. She almost had to blush over the amount of things she kept telling herself had _nothing to do with Clarke_.

"Yeah, but since when do you like art?" It was true that she hadn't spent much time thinking about the subject before, not that she couldn't appreciate something she found visually pleasing. But rather all the art that used to hang on the walls in her old apartment had all been picked out by Costia. And they had all been taken by the woman during the breakup. Bare walls existed when she couldn't bring herself to replace any of the paintings and she had yet to purchase anything since.

"Some people would say that what I do is art," Lexa said cheekily while her sister rolled her eyes and placed the cup back on the shelf.

"And this has nothing to do with the cute barista you told me about yesterday?"

Lexa blushed. Anya had called her the day before to ask about her Thanksgiving plans and basically invited herself over for Chinese food and what her sister called "shitty company" which Lexa couldn't bring herself to feel offense towards. And in that call she had mentioned Clarke's name without any prompt and it was something that Anya would not let go of, though all she could get out of her sister was that Clarke was just some barista at some coffee shop that her sister liked to go to. Lexa refused to tell her which one, knowing just how determined her sister could be when she put her mind to it.

"I didn't say she was cute."

"The fact that you can't look me in the eye says otherwise, Lexie Pooh."

Lexa groaned. "That nickname ran its course in kindergarten and should really be put to rest."

"Not as long as I'm your big sister. Though I may let up if you decide to tell me all about this new girl of yours." A dog with a bone, that is what her sister reminded her of. But Lexa was nothing if not resourceful.

"Speaking of girls, isn't the Ice Queen upset that you're not spending today with her and her uptight family?" Lexa always knew the best way to distract her sister and she was almost always successful.

Anya just sighed. "I keep thinking one of these days you will finally stop hating Nia. She didn't know it was your book when she called it 'drivel'. And she seems to be a part of the vast minority in that sentiment. I mean how many months was your last book on the top of the best seller's list?"

Lexa scoffed. "You think I don't like her because she doesn't like my book? I could care less. I don't like her because she treats you like shit and you deserve someone who doesn't make you feel like they are better than you are." So maybe Clarke's words had stuck more than she had expected them to. "Plus, she hates me just as much as I hate her so let's not pretend this is one sided."

Anya rolled her eyes. "She doesn't hate you, Lex."

Lexa laughed. "Then she takes her dislike of me to a whole new level."

This at least seemed to make Anya grin before she sighed again and said, "well Nia dislikes me on a higher level right now as well."

"We should start a club."

"We can get your mystery coffee cup artist to draw us something for our t-shirts."

"She may actually request payment for that," Lexa said jokingly, happy to see her sister smiling again. This was how they had always dealt with their emotions when they were together. They both grew up in that military style household where if they were feeling angry or upset it was more acceptable to go chop wood in the backyard than it was to explain what it was they were feeling. And so this avoidance? It was comfortable. Costia had always hated it. Lexa realized now that Costia could have tried to be more understanding of it.

"Well then it's a good thing you're loaded. How much was the advance they gave you for the next book in the series?" Anya asked with a smirk.

"I feel like as my manager you really should know these things."

When the evening was over and their bellies were full with far more grease than Lexa would have liked, the sisters sat on the couch, both staring at the box in the corner of the room. The box that Anya tried to remove from the moving van of all her things during the move. The box that Anya detested and Lexa refused to part from. Because maybe Costia would want to come back for it. And maybe she could convince her to go out to dinner. Then dinner would become talking again which would lead to something more. And something more would return her to the happiness that had been taken from her.

Anya grabbed another handful of almonds before chucking another at the box, aiming for the perfectly drawn 'o'. She had thrown about three dozen so far and was getting closer, though Lexa could tell that Anya was more annoyed that she herself had hit the target every time for the last five throws.

"I think it's time I get rid of the box," Lexa said in the middle of Anya's throw causing the nut to soar several feet higher than the intended target.

"Please tell me that you are being serious and that wasn't just some ruse to throw me off my game." Anya said with eyebrows high.

"I'm already kicking your ass, Ahn. I don't need gimmicks to prove to you who the superior marksman is."

Anya snorted. "For all I know, you've been practicing at this and that's the only reason you're beating me."

But Lexa just smirked. "With that theory, you should be far more practiced than me. I mean you've handled plenty of nuts in your day, usually a pair at a time even."

"I would prefer that my baby sister not think about my sleeping with men." Anya groaned, her next throw about an inch off from target.

"Knowing you, there really wasn't much sleeping involved."

"The day you write the character you wrote after me into a sex scene is the day that I send you to a Freudian shrink." Then the two sisters both pretended to shutter.

"Trust me. I won't be writing that scene." Lexa threw another almond, this one hitting dead center. "Especially because it would be painful writing in just how horrible and unskillful you are about handing nuts."

"And the fact that you can handle them so well, Lexie Pooh?"

"I-" Lexa began and then stopped herself. "Touché," was all she could really say in response.

"You know, everyone we know thinks you're so put together and sophisticated and yet here you are making jokes about nuts like some teenage boy who laughs at the word 'boobs'."

"I never laugh about boobs." Lexa said with a sly grin that caused her sister to laugh. This year was a much better year that last year. She didn't think it could ever be good again.

"How are the barista's boobs?" Anya asked with a smile and Lexa could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and then elsewhere as she thought of the body part in question. And at the same time she didn't like the way Anya asked about them as if she were nothing more than some warm body that existed for the sole purpose of them to gawk at.

"Don't talk about her like that. She's more than just piece of meat for us to objectify. She's smart and she's funny and her drawings make me feel something."

She could feel something in her chest expanding as she felt this overwhelming need to protect Clarke's honor even if it was from someone that she loved. And what that meant she wasn't sure. But Anya was looking at her now as if she was a puzzle that needed to be solved. And then a look crossed her features that looked oddly like surprise before she shrugged and threw another almond, this one hitting dead center.

"So you're getting rid of the box?"

"Yeah, I'm getting rid of it."

It had nothing at all to do with Clarke. She was getting a little sick of hearing herself think that sentence.

After Anya left, all that remained were Lexa, containers of empty takeout and a box that suddenly seemed more like a burden than something precious. She didn't open the box. Instead she taped it shut.

Twelve hours later she found herself standing at the post office with the box hugged tightly to her chest. She was almost ashamed to say that she had memorized Costia's latest address. She was definitely ashamed when she realized that she had hired a private investigator to get it for her a few months ago when she'd heard that she'd moved. But she felt no shame at all when she left the building with the box no longer in her possession. Instead she felt a sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted, as if she was ready for life to begin again.


	2. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was so much love after the first chapter, I am completely overwhelmed. Thank you all so much for the support. Please enjoy this next chapter, I am posting this a day early and I made it longer than the last chapter. Plus we get more Clexa interaction!

> Now here you go again, you say  
>  You want your freedom  
>  Well who am I to keep you down  
>  It's only right that you should  
>  Play the way you feel it  
>  But listen carefully to the sound  
>  Of your loneliness  
>  Like a heartbeat drives you mad  
>  In the stillness of remembering what you had  
>  And what you lost, and what you had, and what you lost
> 
> -Dreams by Fleetwood Mac

With the end of Thanksgiving came a flurry of snow that descended upon the earth below, dropping the temperature outside several degrees lower turning cheeks into a slightly brighter tinge of red and uncovered lips with a slightly bluish hue to those that dare brave the weather for more than half an hour at a time.

The Saturday morning after Thanksgiving had rendered the streets useless to cars and opened up a wonderland to the children of the city who took to the streets like a pack of wolves after a fresh kill. Okay, so maybe that was a bit barbaric for the children of TonDC who looked rather cute in their oversized mittens and colorful beanies but Lexa was another chapter into her book as she sat by the window of her apartment, occasionally glancing down at the world below.

Enter the Sky Princess, Elyza. The blonde haired, silver eyed heroine who crash lands with around a hundred other young adults onto Earth - an outfit from space, a part of civilization that escaped the bombs that the people still alive on Earth had survived. It was becoming harder and harder to convince herself that Clarke wasn't the person she was writing about. And so finally she just accepted it. She sat there staring at the honest joy of the kids below and decided to stop lying to herself, well, for this part anyway.

So what if Clarke had inspired her to write again? Writers found muses in the most unassuming places. It didn't have to mean anything more than that. Plus the barista was an oddity, though in the best of ways. She was smart, she was funny, she was talented and sincere and passionate. Why wouldn't she want to create a space centered counterpart to Alicia, the Earth bound Commander? Though maybe less rough around the edges and a little less tortured, but still someone who had battled her own fair share of demons.

And so what if Elyza would turn out to be the girl that Alicia falls in love with at the end of the book after letting go of her traitorous past love Cynthia who now sits back where she belongs at the right hand of the Ice Queen, Nina. And yes, she wrote in that heinous character after Anya's girlfriend. She wasn't even subtle about their likeness either which Anya hadn't fully forgiven her for yet. Plus Nia already hated her, so why try and hide her own inspiration behind a fake name and something that wasn't her literary version of a doppelgänger?

It was there in chapter three where Elyza walks into Alicia's tent demanding a truce and Lexa can't help but use the exact lines that she had written on a napkin the day that she met the blonde barista. So it was a bit of a run on sentence but she didn't change a word of it. Real life magnetism written down as fictional magic.

 

* * *

 

"A black and red checkered flannel shirt, a beanie and some work boots. Tell me, Glasses, are you attempting to pull off the most stereotypical lesbian look there is because you truly love the look or are you trying to attract someone's attention to your preferences?"

Lexa rolled her eyes as she handed Raven a five dollar bill before shaking herself out of her snow covered jacket. "What are you doing here, Ray Ray? You usually don't work here on Sunday mornings."

The nickname left the woman at the counter with a horrified look on her face. "First off, that is a horrible attempt at a nickname. Second, Octavia called in sick so I'm took her shift. I could use the extra cash to buy some parts for this engine rebuild. Also, I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Sunday morning than to watch you ogling over my best friend from your seat in the back corner."

Lexa choked on the final comment made by the smirking girl in front of her. She did not ogle Clarke at the coffee shop, did she? There was no denying that Lexa found the blonde extremely attractive and that she rather enjoyed her company but to go so far as to gawk? There was no way, was there?

"I don't ogle, Clarke." Lexa said with a conviction that just made Raven smile wider.

"I didn't say Clarke."

"Yes, you did. You said I ogled-"

"My best friend." Raven finished for her. "Which could have been Octavia."

Lexa could see the trap that Raven had tried to lay out. "And how could I ogle someone who called out today? You said you wanted to watch me gawk at someone while at work so clearly you meant Clarke. Who I do not ogle."

This at least made Raven's smile falter. "Okay, fine, I can see your logic but it doesn't negate the fact that you obviously have the hots for my girl." Lexa tried not to cringe at the title 'my girl' that Raven had given to her friend.

"I don't-" Lexa tried again before Raven lifted her hands in the air to stop the obvious lie of a protest.

"You're both delusional," was all Raven said in response before sighing and calling out loudly into the back stockroom. "Clarke, your writer is here. Give her the Christmas special."

Lexa didn't hear anything about the coffee order as she could feel her cheeks tinge red at the mention of being Clarke's writer. A tinge that got darker when Clarke walked into the front of the store with a large smile on her face, not bothering to correct Raven that Lexa wasn't in fact _her_ writer.

"Hey Lex, it must be cold outside." Lexa could feel her head tilting slightly which just made Clarke smile brighter.

"Because of the snow?" Lexa asked trying not to feel confused by the question.

"Because of how bright red your cheeks are," Clarke explained which caused Raven to snort as Lexa threw a glare in her direction. "Did you have a good holiday?"

Lexa looked back to the blonde barista who was working away at the coffee machine, clearly too involved with her job to see the exchange made between Lexa and Raven. "I had dinner with my sister," Lexa replied. "It was nice."

The answer seemed to please Clarke who smiled brightly before pouring the drink she had made into a coffee cup that wasn't covered in the normal black lines produced by a sharpie. Instead the cup was a mixture of blacks and blues and whites and browns and greens. Lexa could feel the raised edges of the paint covering the normally smooth white paper cup against her fingertips as she took the cup out of the blonde's hands and surveyed the scene in front of her.

A fall time tree had been painted onto the cup, its branches slightly bare from its leaves having fallen to the ground below. Against the tree, weaving through its open branches was a starry night sky with a cornucopia of stars that littered the skyline. She could recognize different constellations on the cup as if not a single star had been painted out of place, all shining through the tree with purpose. The perspective of the scene seemed to be drawn as if she were laying on the grass floor looking up through the tree and into the sky above.

"I was thinking about what you wrote after Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house and you compared the Earth against the night sky as if the ground at our feet was undeserving of the cosmos above. Except when I looked up I saw the sky above and the ground below interacting with one another, blending together in this beautiful symphony of stars within the branches of a tree. I thought that nothing could have been more breathtaking in that moment. So maybe it's not about which is more deserving. Maybe it's best to just take notice as to how much better these things can be when they're together."

Clarke's hands seemed to be busy as they twisted at the hem of her apron nervously as she seemed to chew at her bottom lip, something that made Lexa's stomach lurch. Normally Clarke would just draw her something that reminded her of the words she wrote but this cup seemed to mean a lot more. It was something that the blonde believed in, a statement that contradicted Lexa's words as if trying to convince her of something.

Lexa's heart fluttered in her chest as she smiled at the barista, for a moment ignoring that fact that Clarke had no idea that her painting, her statement, suggested that the artist and the writer would be better when together. As if Lexa could find herself deserving of the blonde's affections.

"It's beautiful," Lexa said, turning her attention back to the art in her hands. "I really like the way that the leaves seemed to swirl around as if they were dancing against the stars." The explained appreciation made the artist smile brightly from ear to ear.

"You didn't smile like that when I told you I liked your painting," Raven said mockingly, reminding both girls of her existence. Lexa had to admit that she had forgotten that anyone else had existed in the coffee shop beyond the two of them.

But Clarke just shook her head. If Lexa didn't know any better she would have said that Clarke was blushing. "That's because your only response was that it looked pretty."

"So I should have used the word 'beautiful' like Glasses?"

"No. Lexa tried to tell me what it was she saw when she looked at it and I appreciate that. I want to make art that makes people feel things, Ray."

"You did," Lexa responded before Raven could say anything else. "Do you have a piece of paper for me to write on?" The question made Clarke smile just as brightly as when Lexa had explained her appreciation of her art.

 

* * *

 

Lexa found herself missing the Thanksgiving themed corner in the back of the store as she sipped her coffee that seemed to have a slight hint of ginger added to it. The corner was now decorated in festive greens and a pine tree was added into the corner. Though she had to smile at the chalkboard that seemed just as unhappy about its new transformation as Lexa was. **'Make the Christmas music stop!'** it exclaimed for all to read.

Over a week had passed since Thanksgiving and things were back to normal. Lexa's cups were decorated in black inked drawings, the fourth chapter of her book had been completed, Raven was still refusing to call her by her name and Monty was typing away in the front corner of the store. The only thing that was different was that Lexa was aware now of how often she found herself looking up to catch a glance of the blonde barista. Ever since Raven had mentioned it a week ago, it was impossible not to notice.

And it wasn't as if she was never caught staring. When Raven would catch her, a sly knowing smirk would grace her features and Lexa would look away as if she had been a child having been caught sneaking a cookie before dinner. When Octavia caught her she would wiggle her eyebrows and motion at the blonde with her head as if telling Lexa to do something about it. Lexa would then make the same motion towards Lincoln and immediately Octavia would go back to doing whatever she was doing as if neither one of them knew about the others' pining. And when Clarke would catch her, she would smile brightly in her direction causing Lexa to smile back, unable to help it.

On average, Lexa spent half of her time either talking to Clarke or stealing glances in her direction. And on average she spent ninety percent of her time there thinking about her. Though if she was being honest with herself, she spent that same percentage of time outside of the coffee shop thinking about her as well.

What kind of food did Clarke like to eat for breakfast? Did Clarke like to run too? Did Clarke ever read any of the books in her Commander series? Did she enjoy them? Would Clarke treat her differently if she knew who she really was? Would Clarke be mad that Lexa never told her? Clarke. Clarke. Clarke. The name was a constant in her mind. And in her dreams too it seemed when she woke up in the morning to find her hand beneath the waistband of her flannel pajama pants as she moaned out the girl's name in her first waking breath.

It was beginning to become too real and slightly out of control and yet Lexa couldn't keep herself away. She had a habit, she had a routine and it seemed like pining after Clarke had become one of those things, a constant that she couldn't shake. Though maybe it was that she didn't want to shake it. Maybe she was finally completely over Costia and ready to move on with her life. After all, a woman had needs, needs that hadn't been met by anything other than Lexa's own hand after Costia had left. Though she supposed that thoughts of Clarke naked and panting below her was also something she could now add to that list.

She was stealing a glance at the blonde who was moving her hips to some top forty song on the radio that Lexa vaguely knew the lyrics for when her phone started vibrating in her pocket, some generic ringtone filling the air around her. Clarke's movements were mesmerizing to the brunette, so much so that she rushed to answer her phone, not wanting the sound to disrupt the barista's movements.

Clarke looked up in time to see Lexa looking at her while she fumbled with her phone, throwing a smile and a wink in her direction that seemed to push Lexa's heart pumping into overdrive as she sent what she was sure was some goofy smile back. Lexa could have cursed herself for not appearing more smooth while she pressed the phone to her ear, not bothering to look at the number on the screen.

"Hi, this is Lexa," she answered, her eyes still on the blonde who was now dancing unabashedly while smirking at the brunette, causing her to unconsciously bite her bottom lip.

"Hey, Lexie." The voice on the other end of the phone caused Lexa's smile to fall off her lips as images flooded her mind putting a pressure on her chest, making it hard to breathe. All she could see was a bright white smile against dark, tanned skin, hazel eyes and curly black hair. She could see Costia grinning at her, hear the sounds she made while Lexa kissed her way down her stomach, feel the brush of fingertips against her leg, smell the honey scent on her skin. And then she could see the door closing shut behind the love of her life while the words 'it's over' drifted into the space between them.

"Lexa? Are you there? Please don't hang up." The words seemed to pull her out of her memories and she wasn't sure how long she had spent in silence after hearing Costia's voice. She also couldn't remember looking away from Clarke when it had happened but she was staring at the cup on the table decorated with an anatomical heart in constriction before looking back up to see concern in blue eyes, all dancing movement having ceased.

"Yeah, I'm here," was what Lexa found herself saying, helpless against her knee jerk reaction to respond. She looked away from the blonde again, feeling weak in her own convictions for not hanging up the phone immediately.

"I got your package. Or I guess I got a package of my things that you sent me."

The phone call lasted about fifteen minutes and when it was over Lexa felt exhausted as if she had spent the last three hours running until her body could no longer move. Her heart felt heavy in her chest along with the tongue in her mouth. She didn't know how to feel and it was hard to pinpoint a single emotion.

She hadn't heard Costia's voice in months and now her words were vibrating loudly in her head, clouding her thoughts, toying with her emotions. A pressure sat behind her eyes as she looked up to see Clarke looking torn. She looked as if she wanted nothing more than to walk over to her table but there were a handful of empty cups sitting in front of her and a half dozen or so customers who looked as if they would riot if they didn't get their caffeine fix soon.

The concern in her gaze was too much to bear as Lexa looked away and instead focused on the piece of paper sitting in front of her, empty and waiting for Lexa to pour out words onto them. She couldn't help but grab the pen beside her fingers and for the first time wrote something down more akin to a section of a diary than a portion of a book.

_She called me._

_I spent months imagining this moment in my mind over and over, like a broken record with the needle never moving and the song unable to do anything other than repeat itself even when those listening were tired of hearing. I weighed every possible option of every possible thing that she could possibly say and I figured out what the best things to say in response were - the things that would give me the best chance of reminding her of what it was she lost when she left me, to convince her to fight for us again._

_She said what I thought she would._

_I knew what I should say._

_I didn't say it._

_I loved her. I lost her. I lived for a year with a broken heart and all I could think was that I was absolutely nothing without her. And yet just now, when I answered the phone and heard her voice, I didn't say the words that would bring her back to me._

_Is this moving on?_

_People say that hate is the opposite of love, but love and hate are just two sides of the same coin. They both remind you that you are passionate, that you care even if you don't want to. I think that the opposite of love is to feel absolutely nothing at all. That there is nothing left to either love or to hate. I don't think I love her anymore and I can't bring myself to care enough to hate her so shouldn't I feel apathetic?_

_I don't feel empty and that scares me more than anything else I could imagine._

Lexa didn't bother rereading what it was that she wrote. Instead she placed her pen back into her pocket, picked up her still full coffee, left the paper on the table and exited the shop without a word to anyone even though she could feel a pair of eyes boring into her back.

The cold air outside felt like a reminder of freedom, an escape from a life that she just now realized had made her unhappy. The rose colored glasses were off and she couldn't help but realize that moving on was in fact the best decision she could have made. Her and Costia were over. It was time to move on. She would be happy again.

 

* * *

 

Their dynamic shifted.

The letter she left Clarke opened up a world to the two of them that they hadn't allowed themselves to venture into. All their conversations before Costia's phone call involved art and writing and theory and random topics while they both seemed to keep their personal lives very close to their chests. But after Costia called, after Lexa poured out her true feelings and thoughts onto paper, their lives became open books, or at least some chapters of their lives had.

The next time Lexa had walked into the coffee shop it had been a very quiet evening and Clarke handed her a cup with a drawing of a boy on it whose eyes always seemed to be looking away, no matter what angle you looked at the cup from which seemed to be quite a feat. His hair was shaggy and his face slightly angelic though the look in his eyes was anything but.

"His name was Finn," Clarke said after she joined Lexa at her table, leaving Raven to man the counter despite the fact that Lexa had just gotten there. "We dated for two years. I thought he may have been the one. I came home early one day from a trip with my parents to find a girl with strawberry blonde hair in our bed. Apparently they had been sleeping together for months, this was before I had dropped out of medical school. It seems that I didn't give him enough attention, as if that was a valid excuse for cheating on me."

Lexa reached across the table and took Clarke's hand in her own, squeezing it to let the blonde know that she was there, to give her some form of comfort. She tried to ignore the tingling sensation on the skin of her hand, or the stings of electricity that buzzed up her arm.

"Her name was Costia," Lexa found herself saying in response and Clarke looked almost relieved that she hadn't offered her an apology, as if she was more than used to hearing it. "We dated for three years and my life consisted of her and my writing, nothing else mattered much. I couldn't tell you when we fell out of love, or what it was in particular that caused it to happen. It just did. One day I was sitting at my desk, finishing up a chapter of my book as I looked at her lounging on our couch, thinking that this was my life, my future. And then the next day she was telling me that it wasn't working anymore and that it hadn't been for a long while for her.

"A part of me wishes that she had done something horrible to me that would have made it easier to hate her, to accept the fact that we were over and I was better off without her. But it didn't happen that way. Instead I found myself alone in the apartment we shared, with a box worth of things that she forgot to take with her, thinking that the best part of my life was gone and that my happiness was over. Without her I couldn't write anything that made me happy, that made me feel fulfilled."

"But you seem to be writing now," Clarke offered with a shy smile, one that Lexa returned.

She didn't know how to explain that Clarke was the reason for her writing again, that she was the thing that brought her back and out of the darkness. She couldn't tell her that her heart was beating quickly at the realization that Clarke's hand was still in hers and that she wished she could keep it there for the rest of her life. Or that she wanted nothing more than to lean over the table and kiss her.

Instead she succumbed to the realization that Clarke used to have a boyfriend and that she was most likely straight. She resigned herself to the fact that these feelings she had were completely one sided and that friendship was the only thing that Clarke was offering her.

"You're right, I am. Maybe moving to a new city just lifted my writer's block." She didn't notice the slight look of disappointment in Clarke's face in response to her answer.

 

* * *

 

"My parents have been married for thirty years and it's almost gross how in love they are with one another." Clarke stole a drink out of Lexa's coffee and the brunette couldn't help but smile at the fact that the barista felt comfortable enough around her to just steal a sip from her cup without really thinking about it. "I swear they have ruined relationships for me."

Lexa snorted at the comment, taking the cup out of Clarke's hands to take a drink of her own. "Your parents love each other and that has ruined relationships for you how exactly? I mean I have friends whose parents are divorced and grew up believing love doesn't last. Aren't you lucky?"

There was a sparkle in Clarke's eyes as she smiled and stole the cup back causing Lexa to smile again. "Yes, I am lucky, but I now also have this impossibly high standard of what relationships are supposed to be. How am I supposed to find someone that makes me as happy as my dad makes my mom? And if we aren't that happy then does that mean I'm with the wrong person?"

Lexa laughed at that. She knew that her mother had loved her father, and that he had loved her mother but they were never a couple to outwardly show those emotions. It was more so the little things they did for one another without asking and the fact that they seemed to fight very little. But had her parents been as expressive as Clarke's had been Lexa found herself wondering if she would have left Costia much sooner than their breakup.

"Well maybe it's a blessing, Clarke. You deserve someone who will make you as happy as your dad makes your mom. Perhaps anything less would be settling."

Clarke rolled her eyes and took another drink before Lexa stole the cup from her possession. "By that logic, I deserved better than all the relationships I've had so far."

"Well if they were right, you would still be with them, don't you think? Maybe you just haven't met the one yet."

"Or maybe I have and we just haven't realized it yet," Clarke said with a daring look in her eyes that made Lexa's mouth feel dry.

"Well if that's the case then he really needs to pull his head out of his ass because he's one lucky guy."

The statement made Clarke's eyebrows pull together as if she were confused about her statement. She even opened her mouth to object before a dinging cut her off and both of them looked to the door to see a half dozen teenagers walking into the shop. They could both feel Raven looking in their direction.

"Duty calls," Lexa said and Clarke just sighed before getting up to do her job.

 

* * *

 

_She found herself thinking about love, a topic she hadn't really thought of much before even when she had thought she was in love all those months ago. But suddenly she found herself unable to ignore it. How was she supposed to know if she was in love? What did it feel like? What did it sound like? Did it have a taste? Was it a learned behavior? If so she wasn't really sure she was capable. Her parents had never been the embodiment of love stricken adults. She feared what her parents would say if they could see her now: young, foolish and theorizing about the ideologies of love as she tried not to stare at the way the Sky Girl held herself._

"So did your parents like Costia?" Clarke asked as she set the paper back onto the table.

It was a few days before Christmas and both the topic of Costia and her parents were normally enough to draw her into a sour mood at this time of the year but Lexa couldn't bring herself to feel anything other than satisfied in the blonde's presence.

"My mother seemed to like her just fine, though they had only met less than a handful of times."

"And your dad?" Clarke asked.

"They never met," Lexa answered truthfully despite the fact that she didn't want to dampen the mood. "He died when I was in high school. He was overseas serving a tour of duty when an IED took out the vehicle he and his troops were on."

She prepared herself for the apology that was surely headed her way, expecting to find herself explaining that it happened a long time ago, except the two words never came. Clarke did look like she felt sorry for bringing up the topic of her father but the words that came next surprised Lexa. "Tell me about him."

Every time she had brought up the topic of her father's death it was always followed by an 'I'm sorry' and an awkward silence that suggested that the other person was desperate for a topic change. But not Clarke. The artist instead seemed interested in the man that was important to Lexa, asking about him and in a way paying respect to his memory. It filled Lexa's chest with a warmth and she found herself falling deeper for the girl sitting across from her.

"He was the kindest man I've ever known even though you really had to know him to see it. His father was in the military and his father before him. He always joked that war was in our blood but when I mentioned wanting to join in his footsteps he made me promise that I wouldn't consider joining until I finished college. He wanted a different life for me and after he died it felt wrong to not honor his wishes."

Lexa found herself smiling as she thought about her father and fond memories started filling her mind. "One time he took Anya and I camping and a raccoon had broken into our food box and was eating the bread we had bought for sandwiches. Let me tell you, raccoons are very cute looking little thieves but they are vicious. Anyway, my dad attempted to throw a small rock at it to scare it off and managed to hit it in the chest. I swear you not, the thing jumped out of the box and lunged at my dad and the next thing you know there's a massive body builder looking six foot five tall guy running down the street with a tiny raccoon chasing after him. Anya and I never let him live it down."

Lexa pulled out her phone to show her a picture of her dad and Clarke laughed, now able to fully visualize the tale Lexa had told. It was a picture of him holding up a thirteen year old Lexa from behind and lifting her off the ground with a bear hug. Lexa was laughing in the picture along with her father who had a large black beard covering his face and forearms as thick as Lexa's thighs. "I dressed up as a bandit with a black mask for Halloween two months after that camping trip and after that my dad always referred to me as his little raccoon saying I resembled the tiny woodland creature more so than a daunting bandit."

"He sounds like he was a great man," Clarke said with a wistful smile as she handed Lexa back her phone and Lexa couldn't help but agree.

"He wouldn't have liked Costia," Lexa finally admitted. "He would have found her to be a little insincere and much too dramatic. Though in all fairness, there weren't a whole lot of people that my dad truly liked. He would have hated my sister's girlfriend."

"I'm guessing that must make it hard on relationships then. My dad tends to like most people, though he never quite liked Finn. I guess that should have been a warning."

"My dad just wanted the best for us," Lexa defended. "And it's not like he didn't like people. I mean I'm pretty sure he would have liked you." Lexa said it before she could think about it and stop herself from saying it. They were talking about people they've dated meeting their fathers and she couldn't help but picture Clarke meeting her dad, knowing full well that he would have enjoyed her honesty and her witt.

Clarke blushed in response. "I guess I will take that as a compliment then. Though I don't have the best track record with parents. The likelihood is that you would have taken me to meet your dad and he would have caught me with my hand up your shirt as I made out with you against the front door or something."

It was Lexa's turn to blush as she imagined any situation where Clarke's hand was in her shirt and she couldn't help but feel a clenching sensation in her lower stomach and just below her belt line. She had to look away in fear that her eyes would give her wandering thoughts away.

"And what makes you think that it wouldn't be you up against the door?" Lexa found herself asking, her voice much more cool and collected than she actually felt.

The blonde smirked in response. "Please, Lex. You give off this total dominating vibe but we both know that you would be the bottom in our relationship."

Lexa tried to ignore the implication of sex in Clarke's statement and instead found herself focusing on the blonde's assessment of her bedroom character. "Clarke, I have never been a bottom in my life." She couldn't help the annoyance that dripped from her voice which seemed to make the blonde look even more smug.

"Oh please. You would be a service top at best."

"Which could work because Clarke could definitely be a power bottom," Raven said out of nowhere before pulling up a chair to sit with the duo. Clarke looked as annoyed as Lexa felt for the other girl joining in on this particular topic of conversation. Though maybe it was best. The last thing Lexa needed was to envision Clarke moaning out directions naked underneath her while talking to her in a public area.

"I don't think anyone invited you to join in, Pillow Queen," the blonde said with a smirk.

Raven just rolled her eyes. "Sorry, it's not everyday you start talking about sex to one of our customers, Princess. Though maybe you would get laid more if you did."

"You would know. I mean you did sleep with that girl that asked us if we had eggnog flavored coffee two weeks ago."

Raven smirked and looked up as if pretending to be lost in a fond memory. Or maybe she wasn't pretending, Lexa really couldn't tell. "That night I got to drink something that very much resembled eggnog."

Lexa began to choke on the coffee she was drinking, not expecting that type of statement from Raven who looked much too pleased with herself by Lexa's response. Clarke just rolled her eyes as if she were used to these kind of comments from her friend. "Shouldn't you get back to work, Ray?"

The girl threw Clarke an amused look. "Okay, okay. I'll let you and the bookworm get back to ineffectively flirting with one another."

"We aren't flirting," they both called out in unison as Raven got up and chuckled her way back to the counter. The problem was that while they were both lying, both also assumed that the other one wasn't.

 

* * *

 

Lexa sat in the waiting room, nervously picking at the sole of her shoe that she had resting on her knee. She wasn't sure why it was that she hated Indra's office. The room itself was spectacular, sitting fifty stories up in what almost looked like glass walls. She could see all of downtown from where she was sitting. The receptionist was always very nice and very flirtatious, though Lexa had never taken her up on her offer for drinks. Not that Niylah wasn't her type. It seemed as of recently Lexa had a rather ebullient fondness for blondes.

It was likely due to the fact that Indra was her publisher and it was her opinion that really mattered when it came to her book. It was her that had to like it enough to sell it to the executives upstairs. And it wasn't as if Lexa had ever had a bad experience in this office, in fact only good news had ever come from the other side of the two large doors behind the receptionist but she supposed there was always room for a first time for everything.

"Oh, good. I'm not late."

Lexa looked up to see Anya standing in the front door of the office looking slightly out of breath, almost as if she had ran up flights of stairs to be here. But that wasn't what caught Lexa's attention. It was the bags under her sister's eyes and the red tinge to her lids that made it look as if she had spent the morning crying.

"What's wrong?" Lexa asked, suddenly forgetting the room around her, no longer concerned about her career and consumed by the feeling of making sure that Anya was alright.

Anya sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "I broke up with Nia."

"You what?" Lexa stood up and she could feel herself leering at her sister as if she couldn't really believe what she had just heard. More so than that she was trying her hardest not to break out into some celebration dance while pumping her fist into the air in excitement. She would be lying if she said that the statement didn't absolutely thrill her, but she also realized that her sister looked miserable about it. And Anya being miserable upset her more than Nia possibly being out of her life excited her.

"We were celebrating Christmas at her parents' house and she was sitting there berating me in front of her mom and all I could think about is what you told me on Thanksgiving about how I shouldn't be with someone who makes me feel less deserving than they are. And half way through her speech about how I'm not trying enough I just looked at her and told her it was over."

Anya's voice was lacking the proud sentiment that was bubbling up inside of Lexa so she immediately took one step forward to bring her sister into her arms, pulling her into a hug that Lexa realized would likely last much longer than she was comfortable with. Anya pulled at the back of her blazer and rested her forehead on Lexa's shoulder while Lexa ran soothing circles across her sister's back with her hands.

"I'm proud of you," the brunette found herself whispering to her older sister which just made the girl with dark blonde hair snort.

"You're proud of me or your just happy to see us not together anymore?" Her words were muffled slightly by her lapels.

"Hey, Ahn, I never like to see you upset like this. I'm sorry that you are hurting. But I am very proud of you for loving yourself enough to choose you over her for the first time ever. You have every right to be a little selfish in a relationship, not everything has to be about what your partner wants."

Anya sighed and Lexa could feel her nodding into her shoulder. "But what if she was the one, Lex? What if I'm never going to get a love like that again?"

Two months ago Lexa wouldn't have known what to say. Hell, two months ago she felt the exact same way about the girl that had left her over a year prior. But she wasn't the same girl that she was two months ago, something in her had changed, for the better she liked to believe. "If Nia was the right one then she would have made you feel as if you were worthy of being with her. She would have gone out of her way to make you happy instead of just expecting you to do all the work. You will find someone better because Nia was clearly not the one."

"And what if I don't find someone better?"

Lexa grinned, knowing that there was no shortage of women or men that wouldn't be knocking at her sister's door once she was ready for that. But Anya was her sister and there was no way that she was going to allow herself to stroke her ego with the truth of that. "Then you have my permission to spend the boat load of money this next book is going to make you on one of those human looking sex robots being made in Japan and we will somehow program that thing to put up with you."

Anya laughed and Lexa could feel herself relaxing underneath it, happy to hear her sister not wallowing even if just for this moment. "Yeah, yeah, asshole. Let's hope you find someone who will tolerate you because no programming in the world could convince anything to put up with your boring self."

Lexa chose to ignore her sister's comment. "Why don't you come stay with me for awhile until you find a new place?"

"I wouldn't want to disrupt you from your writing," Anya said, though there was a hint of hopefulness in her voice that Lexa couldn't have ignored even if she wanted to.

"You won't. Just don't forget to put the cap back on the toothpaste and we'll be alright."

Lexa could feel Anya smile against her collarbone as she pulled Lexa in for a tighter hug, which now that her sister was pleased was beginning to make Lexa feel a bit uncomfortable. Too much contact for far too long at this point. Plus there was also the fact that she knew Anya now realized that they had ventured into this territory and seemed to be maintaining a tighter hug on purpose.

"Please tell me that I'm not going to have to deal with either a highly emotional writer or manager this morning." Both girls turned to see a dark skinned woman standing between the two large doors into the office with her arms crossed and a look of distaste on her face as if the thought of being around emotional women left a sour taste on her tongue.

"Nope," Lexa said, peeling herself out of her sister's arms and her body seemed to let out a sigh of relief. "There's absolutely no human emotions going on here."

There was immediately a slap to her side as Anya's manager side quickly moved to remind Lexa that Indra was practically their boss at the moment and it wasn't time to tease her. It didn't matter that Indra was close friends with their late father. Business was business. "It's good to see you again Mrs. Porter."

"And you as well, Anya. Are you two ready to talk about these five chapters the two of you have sent over to me?"

Lexa could feel the nerves vibrating in her chest as she looked to Anya and took in a deep breath, but Anya just smiled. "I can't wait to find out how much you all loved Lexa's first few chapters."

 

* * *

 

Lexa wished she had been wearing a tie with her light gray button up shirt, black jeans and dark gray blazer. Not because she enjoyed wearing ties or because the situation called for it. But rather she liked the aesthetic of walking down the sidewalk and loosening a tie from around her neck as a sigh of relief escaped her lips. Like something she would have seen in a movie. If she was writing her own life she would have been smiling on her walk home, loosening the tie around her neck as she breathed a happy breath, contemplating how great her meeting had just gone. But alas, she hadn't gone with a tie. And though no one was there to see it, she still found herself feeling as if she had missed out.

This day couldn't have been any better. Nia was possibly out of her life forever, Indra had beamed about how much the editors were in love with her new book thus far, and she was only a few hours away from her habitual coffee fix. Though that last point was more about a certain blonde haired barista more so than it was the coffee. Though she was beginning to really crave the coffee.

If she was the type of girl that whistled she was sure she would have been mid whistle while she noticed a flash of familiar blonde hair and her heart soared. But the moment was short lived as she could notice from half a block away the annoyed look on her face and the defensive stance of her body as Clarke had her arms crossed across her chest. But more than what she had seen, Lexa found herself more concerned with what she heard: two voices arguing very loudly with one another.

"Come on, Clarke. I just want to sit down and talk." The boy across from Clarke was a few inches taller than her with a mop of long brunette waves of hair on his head.

"We have nothing to talk about." The blonde's normally husky voice was dripping with venom and her words appeared short as her eyes darted around as if looking for a way out of this situation.

"We were together two years, baby. You can't honestly tell me that you are just over us."

"Except that I can. I'm so over your lying, cheating ass, Finn." The name clicked in Lexa's head as she realized that the guy talking to Clarke was in fact her cheating ex-boyfriend and Lexa immediately found herself walking faster towards her friend. It was then that Clarke noticed her and a look crossed her features that looked very much like 'help me!'

"I'm different, I've changed," the boy was now pleading and Lexa knew that she couldn't wait another second before intervening.

She knew what she was supposed to do. She knew that she was supposed to walk up there and ask if there was a problem. Then she was supposed to firmly ask Finn to leave and if he didn't she was allowed to get a little fancy with possible threats to his wellbeing to make sure he left. Now, that was what she was supposed to do, it's not what she did. There were times in her life that Lexa enjoyed her highly active imagination, like when she was writing, or when it allowed her to see things from a different person's perspective. But then there were times like these where she detested it.

One second she was walking up to Clarke with a plan in her head and the next that plan was thrown out the window as she felt her hand snaking around the blonde's waist possessively as she pulled the blonde in to plant a soft kiss on her temple, ignoring the stiffness in the artist's body and the confusion in her eyes. Though lucky for Lexa's latest, rather dramatic plan, Finn was much too focused on Lexa's hand resting far too low on Clarke's waist to be seen as merely friendly to notice Clarke's shock.

"Hey, babe," Lexa said with a sweet, confident smile despite the fact that her lips were buzzing and her skin was hot where Clarke's body had been pulled up against hers. "I'm sorry that I had to leave so early this morning but I couldn't be late to the meeting with my publisher."

It took Clarke only a millisecond longer to realize what it was that Lexa was offering and a large smile crossed her lips and a devilish look fluttered across her eyes. Clarke quickly forced a pout on her face as she turned to face Lexa, running her hands up Lexa's arms to press against her sternum. Lexa couldn't help the gulp in her throat and she tried to ignore the pounding in her chest. She prayed that Clarke couldn't feel her heartbeat.

"I was bummed this morning when I woke up and you weren't right beside me. I was kind of hoping to start off my morning with some rather rigorous exercise." The blonde suggestively bit her bottom lip and Lexa had to force down the mewl that threatened to escape her mouth. She instead tried to focus on the pair of eyes that were glaring holes into the side of her head.

"I swear you're insatiable!" Lexa laughed. "I wouldn't have woken up so late this morning if you hadn't kept me up all night last night."

"I don't remember you complaining." Lexa could nearly feel her mind short circuiting as Clarke slowly ran her index finger down her sternum, over the valley of her breast, down her abs until they stopped to hook themselves just inside the waistband of her jeans. It took everything in Lexa to keep herself from letting her hips thrust forward in search of friction to ease the heat and tension just below Clarke's finger.

"Are you sure about that?" Lexa could curse the crack in her voice. "Because I very much remember complaining that my publisher was doing the devil's work by dragging me out of a bed that you occupied just for a meeting."

Clarke smiled at that as a forced cough attempted to pull their attention away from each other and onto the boy across from them that was fuming but Clarke seemed uninterested as she smiled honestly at Lexa, taking notice of the blazer she was wearing and the nice dress shirt. "How was the meeting?"

Her voice sounded sincere and Lexa found herself getting lost in the moment, forgetting all about how this was staged. For just a moment she let herself believe that this was real, that Clarke was more than just a barista and Lexa was more than just a customer. That she was more than just someone who wrote words that seemed to move Clarke and that Clarke was more than an artist who seemed to move her. In this moment they could be more. In this moment they could be each others' everything.

"It went really well, Indra said that the execs really loved it. And Indra thought that this book could be even better than the first three books. They're doubling my advance and they are talking about doubling the initial book order from the last book." It was an honest answer, one of the only ones Lexa had outright given Clarke about her job. What the hell was she doing? This wasn't real. But Clarke's smile, her eyes said otherwise.

"Lex, that's amazing! I am so proud of you." Both of Clarke's hands were now gripping at her lapels drawing her closer and Lexa couldn't help but find herself starting at Clarke's lips.

"I couldn't wait to tell you," Lexa found herself saying. Her heart clenched with the knowledge that it wasn't at all a lie.

"I know the perfect way to celebrate." Clarke's voice was husky and dripping with suggestion and Lexa couldn't help but notice Clarke glancing at her lips before biting at her own. It was that action that did it, or at least that's what Lexa convinced herself.

It was like a gravitational force. Clarke was the sun and Lexa was an object helpless against her pull. It felt like an explosion that set Lexa's body on fire when she captured Clarke's lips with her own. Her body felt like a live wire, a set of electrical pulses that moved her body without any thought.

Clarke's skin felt soft where Lexa's hand gripped at the back of her neck. Her hip felt pliant where Lexa squeezed to bring her closer. She could feel Clarke's knuckles against her chest where her fists pushed against her as she held Lexa's jacket in her fists. Their hands spoke of desperation but the kiss did not. It was soft and it was fluid. It was slow and entirely unrushed as if they had their entire lives left to explore each others' mouths.

And more than anything else, Lexa found herself melting against Clarke and the knowledge that everything about this kiss felt real. It didn't feel fake. It didn't feel forced. Her heart ached with the fact that everything about this kiss felt right.

A much louder clearing of the throat finally pulled the two away from one another, both of their chests heaving as they tried to take in the necessary air to function. Green eyes stared deeply into blue as they searched one another as if trying to remember where it was they were, as if trying to figure out what had just happened. Another clearing of the throat, one that sounded aggressive and angry pulled their attention back to their audience.

Lexa had to allow herself to remark over how great a likeness Clarke's drawing of the boy had been on her cup a couple of weeks ago. Except she had drawn him more sly than angry. And angry he most definitely was. He was fuming and his hands were in fists at his side, the sneer plastered onto his face.

"What the hell is this?" He asked through grit teeth.

Clarke seemed to snap herself back into reality, though maybe she had never left it, maybe Lexa was the only one that had lost herself a moment ago. "Finn, this is my girlfriend Lexa. Lexa, this is Finn." Her first sentence had bite, her second sentence was said sweetly. And the mention of being Clarke's girlfriend made Lexa feel weak in the knees.

"So we break up and you go back to that whole bisexual bullshit you went on about before we started dating?" Normally that comment would have made Lexa seethe, but there was one word in particular that she got stuck on and too lost in thought to allow herself to be the appropriate amount of angry.

Bisexual. Was it true? Was Clarke a bisexual? Meaning that she was also into women? Meaning that maybe Lexa had a shot? Clarke's angry tone pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Fuck you, Finn. I'm so tired of people like you acting like my sexual orientation is just some means of suggestion like I'm testing the waters still, or that I'm experimenting. Dating you didn't make me straight and any less bisexual in the same way that dating Lexa doesn't magically make me a lesbian."

Lexa didn't hesitate to walk around the back side of Clarke and pull the blonde into her arms so that her back was pressed tightly against Lexa's front. She the hugged the girl tightly as if to tell her that she supported her completely. Being bisexual was just as valid as being straight or gay. In all honestly, Lexa never really cared much for labels anyway.

"So this is it?" Finn asked almost as if he couldn't believe it. "You're just over me and you're with her now?"

"I was over you a long time ago." Lexa pulled Clarke in tighter, placing a soft kiss into her hair and she could feel the artist relaxing into her arms.

"Well I hope you two are happy together." He said it but it seemed to drip with sarcasm. The guy looked downtrodden and absolutely humiliated. Lexa just hoped it was enough to keep him away.

"We are," Lexa said with the most sincerity that she could muster and not a moment later Clarke was entwining their fingers together, setting their hands back on her waist.

They stood there unmoving as they watched Finn walk away and Lexa waited until he turned the corner to let the blonde go, instantly regretting it. She missed Clarke's warmth pressed into her body.

"I'm sorry if that was the wrong thing for me to do," the brunette said, unable to look at Clarke, instead focusing on her boots. "I just figured telling him to go away would have had him coming back later."

"No," Clarke said hurriedly. "Thank you, I really appreciate it."

Lexa cleared her throat, suddenly feeling empty. "Yeah, sure, anytime."

"Anytime?" Clarke asked and Lexa could hear the humor in her tone. The writer couldn't help but blush at the implication and she found herself backtracking, not wanting to ruin what friendship they had.

"If you ever need a fake girlfriend again, I am definitely your girl." The words 'your girl' felt as if they seared on her tongue and her stomach seemed to flip. She didn't look up from her shoes to see the blonde's eyebrows furrow together or to see the fall in her smile.

"Will I see you in the shop later?"

The thought of seeing Clarke in another two hours was both terrifying and exciting all at the same time. But more than anything she felt confused. Confused about her own feelings, confused about the signals Clarke put out, confused about what all this meant. And maybe this meant absolutely nothing. That thought alone was a blow that threatened to crush her.

"No, I can't tonight." She looked up in time to see the disappointment in Clarke's face and it gave her hope. "But you'll see me tomorrow."

This at least made the blonde smile and Lexa couldn't help but mirror her. "I look forward to it."

"Me too."

Lexa knew it the moment she turned and walked away with strawberry lip gloss coating her hips, lip gloss she didn't own. She was fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last scene I had had in my head for the last two months. I went over it and over it changing the dialogue, changing their actions. I think I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, I'm just hoping that my continual changing of it didn't ruin it any. 
> 
> I'm shooting for the next chapter to be out on Sunday of next week. For those of you that read Waiting for Love to Strike, I am working on that one-shot and I'm hoping to have that one out by Wednesday if not sooner. I'm taking Monday off work to relax so hopefully I will have time to get some writing in.
> 
> This chapter was fueled by my listening to Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, which came out many years before I was born and yet - to me - is still the best breakup song ever. If you think you have a better one, send it on over! I love hearing things like that.
> 
> Fun fact: that raccoon camping story wasn't fictional. Except it was me and my brother watching my dad run down a dirt road as we were roasting mash mellows. Those things will attack anything!


	3. Blue Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may or may not have noticed but I have upped the chapter count to five. I had planned for there to be one or two more scenes to this chapter but I think this has already turned into a rather long chapter, plus I said I would get this out on Sunday so...
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!

> All the lights on and you are alive  
>  But you can't point the way to your heart  
>  So sublime, when the stars are aligned  
>  But you don't know  
>  You don't know the greatness you are
> 
>   
>  'Cause Blue Eyes  
>  You are destiny's scene  
>  'Cause Blue Eyes
> 
>   
>  I just want to be the one  
>  I just want to sing a song with you  
>  I just want to get it on with you
> 
> -Blue Eyes by the Cary Brothers

There is something about silence not actually being quiet. In times of comfort, in times of peace, silence can be a welcomed ally, like a friend that you haven't seen in a long time but once you see them again, you know they've been missed. But there was nothing welcoming, nothing comforting about the silence that now consumed Lexa's bedroom as the first rays of light began to peak its way through her windows.

The silence started several hours ago when the body beside her finally succumbed to the fatigue of tears and unfamiliar emotion. It was easier for Lexa to focus on anything other than the blonde haired girl she had kissed the day before when her sister was sitting on her bed, complaining about how she wasn't going to sleep on her "god awful, uncomfortable couch" when Lexa's bed was large enough for two. But Lexa knew that there was nothing wrong with her couch, she had bought it specifically with comfort in mind. It wasn't the couch that was haunting Anya.

Lexa had always been fascinated about what it was the human body was capable of, what it was one could trick their minds into believing. She remembered when her and Costia had finally moved in together, how difficult it was to sleep with another body pressed up against hers. In the summer time it was far too hot even when not a shred of fabric lay over their bodies. In the winter it was again too hot because they would go into bed cold, throw on a large blanket and snuggle up together. But skin against skin warmed them quickly and then the blankets were shed leaving her chest warm against Costia's skin and her back freezing from the comfort of only cold air.

It took her over a month to train herself to sleep through the night with someone in her arms. It took her several months longer than that to actually enjoy it, to crave it, to toss and turn when one of them couldn't be home for the night. And then when Costia had left? When she knew she would no longer hold her in her arms at night? She couldn't really say she had had a fully peaceful sleep since, but at least she finally slept through the night.

So Lexa knew that it wasn't the couch. Anya knew it wasn't the couch. They were both completely aware that it was the fact that for two years Anya had someone she had learned to share her bed with, her sleep with, and even though Anya was the one to break it off, nights spent alone after countless nights pressed against another body was daunting.

It was easier for Anya to complain about a non-existent problem, like a couch that was more than adequate, than actually talk about what it was that was bothering her. Lexa understood that, it's why she didn't offer to leave her sister the bed to sleep on the couch herself. Anya just needed someone to lay beside her and Lexa could be that someone. She didn't say anything when she felt the bed shaking after the lights went out as Anya cried beside her, sniffles filling the air with sounds. She just pushed her shoulder into her sister's back as she stared at the ceiling to let Anya know that she was there.

It was easier then, Lexa hated to admit, when Anya's hitched breathing interrupted the silence. It gave her something else to think about, to care about, to worry about. She could focus on Anya, on ways to help her move forward, on how the apartment across the hall had just become vacant and how it might be nice to have her sister close again. Close but in her own apartment because she had absolutely no interest in a roommate. Especially a roommate who spent the month following her last breakup under a mound of men and women alike.

But when Anya finally fell asleep and shifted further away from her sister, Lexa found her mind wandering back to Clarke, to Finn, to that kiss that hadn't left her mind once, even when it was pushed to the corners of her consciousness so that she could focus on being there for Anya. The memory screamed to be replayed, it thundered to be felt and there was absolutely no quiet for Lexa in the silence of the night.

It was hard not to remember the feel of Clarke's chest being pushed against her own, the flattening of her breasts so that they pushed more fully against her frame. She swore to herself on that bed that she could feel the peaks of stiff nipples on the underside of her own chest. It was hard not to remember the feeling of Clarke's index finger against the flesh of her pelvic bone and how her body compulsively shivered against the contact. It was hard not to remember the way those hands gripped at her jacket and the way Lexa instinctively had thrust her hips into the blonde's who instantly reacted by pushing back.

And those lips, God those lips. They tasted of strawberry and her breath tasted of spearmint, likely the flavor of her toothpaste. They were soft and malleable and fit so perfectly against her own it was almost as if her lips were made to kiss Clarke's. She could drown in the sheer knowledge of their mouths' compatibility.

But it was the eyes that Lexa realized were seared into her mind because she couldn't close her own without seeing the brightest, most beautiful blue that she had ever seen. Those eyes that had been enough to end her months long struggle of writers block. Those eyes that sparkled when she truly smiled, that danced when she laughed, that held so much concern when Lexa would tell her about some skeleton from her past. After they pulled away from their kiss the blue irises seemed smaller in size and obsidian pupils appeared blown wide. They shook as they stood inches apart as if searching Lexa's face for something, anything. They seemed desperate for more and Lexa felt sorrow that she didn't provide it.

If she was hiding her feelings about Clarke from herself before, it was nearly impossible to do so now. She liked Clarke, more than she probably should. She liked the way she laughed. She adored the way she smiled. She was mesmerized by the way she would bite her bottom lip when she read things that Lexa wrote. And now she was infatuated with the way Clarke's body, any part of her body, felt pressed against her own.

And maybe there was nothing wrong about feeling this way about Clarke. Maybe there was absolutely nothing wrong with her going over that kiss over and over in her mind. Maybe there was nothing wrong with admitting to herself that she most definitely wanted to feel Clarke's body pressed up against hers again, preferably on this very bed. The problem was that the way her hands itched to write when inspiration struck as a means to ease her mind was the exact same itch her fingers had now, desperate to ease the tension between her legs. And with her sister in her bed? Lexa felt like a total perv.

Of all the times that Anya could have broken up with Nia, why did it have to be now?

 

* * *

 

Her heart was beating quickly in her chest as she watched her breath materialize into a plume in the cold air as she walked down the street to Arkadia. She had contemplated staying home and not risking making a complete fool out of herself in front of the kiss skilled barista. More so than that she was contemplating staying home and taking her sweet, sweet time releasing the tension from her body while her sister was gone from the apartment to collect her things from the hotel room she had been staying at the past week. But Anya had other plans, or rather her manager had other plans.

Anya had picked up Lexa's notebook and pen, handing them to the brunette with a stern look before she pointed at the door telling her sister to go try and find some more inspiration for the book that they had just doubled her salary for. Lexa had tried to argue and said that she needed a break which just earned her a glare before the items were shoved against her chest and two hands forcefully pushed her out of her own apartment door. And that's how Lexa found herself with her heart palpitating as she entered the warm coffee shop. She regretted it the moment Raven's eyes lit up mischievously upon seeing her.

"How's it going, Sugar Lips? Can I get you the usual?"

The nickname made Lexa pause right in the middle of removing the gloves from her hands. It took her a moment to finally remove the glove as her bare fingers ghosted over her own lips, hoping that she had had snow coating them and that that was the reason for the girl's teasing remark. There was nothing there and the action made Raven smile even more wickedly.

"You didn't honestly think you were going to be able to make out with Clarke in front of my coffee shop and think that it wasn't going to get back to me did you? You can't hide things from me. Did I not teach you anything the first night you came in here? I'm just that good!" Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was looking rather proud of herself.

Lexa found herself stumbling over her words, putting pauses where they didn't need to go, stuttering slightly. "I. Really, I don't know. I mean. I was just doing my part to help a friend out."

But Raven just shook her head. "Trust me, I've helped out Clarke more times than I can count in our many years of friendship and never once did that entail me shoving my tongue down her throat."

"There was no shoving of tongues down throats," Lexa said with a blush that she feared was beginning to turn a bright crimson.

"Oh, I sorta figured you wouldn't be so barbaric with your technique. After all, she did say that you were an amazing kisser."

"She did?" Lexa asked before she could stop herself and Raven's smile dissolved into a fit of laughter.

"No. Unlike you, Sugar Lips, Clarke doesn't cave so easily and her only answer was to tell me to fuck off despite her obvious heart eyes. You know the same eyes you have on right now."

"I don't have heart eyes!"

"Delusional," was all Raven replied in response with the shake of her head. "Your usual?"

Lexa nodded with an exasperated sigh, at least happy that Raven seemed to be bored of teasing her for the moment. She went to reach for the bill in her pocket but a voice interrupted her.

"Put her coffee on my tab today," the voice behind her said and Lexa turned to see Octavia sitting at the table with Lincoln, both of them grinning at her. "Anyone who gets rid of Finn deserves to have their coffee paid for, if not a monument erected in their honor." Then Octavia paused as if contemplating her statement. "Think we could get Clarke to draw Lexa onto our board in the back?"

"No, fucking way. If anyone is going to be monumentalized on that board, it is going to be me. That is my corner!"

Lexa took a peak at the board in the back. The scrawl appeared much happier than it had during the Christmas season. **Free at last, free at last. The Christmas music is over, I am free at last. Welcome to 2017 and prepare to write the year wrong for the next six months!**

"What's the next sign going to be?" Lexa found herself asking out loud, curious about what holiday would annoy the cashier next.

"I guess that depends on whether Raven is single for Valentine's Day," Octavia mused which earned her a very enthusiastic middle finger from her friend who scowled in their direction murmuring something about how her talents weren't appreciated enough. "Lexa, why don't you come join us?"

Lexa found herself staring at the brunette with the welcoming smile who was already sitting beside the fine specimen of a man that was staring longingly at the girl beside him. His eyes spoke of an unrelenting pining that Lexa completely understood though she found herself hoping that she appeared much less obvious when looking at the blonde who had yet to emerge from the back. Lexa's heart sunk at the idea that the blonde may not be in today.

"Sure," Lexa said, too lost in thought to really think about why she maybe should have declined the offer. Though it didn't take long for her to be reminded. Just as long as it took for her to sit down in fact.

"So how exactly does an unknown writer find herself able to afford living on this side of the city while maintaining a four day a week coffee addiction?"

"Octavia!" Lincoln nearly hissed as he traded in his yearning look for one that suggested that his friend was being slightly insensitive. But the brunette beside him returned his look with one of incredulousness.

"What, Lincoln? I'm just trying to look out for Clarke is all."

"And why do you think I'm worthy of the inquisition?" Lexa asked, happy to avoid the topic of her own socioeconomic place in the world. "We're just friends," she added as a second thought, hating the statement the moment she had made it.

Lincoln and Octavia both snorted simultaneously, something that would have been cute had it not been done in retaliation to her previous statement. "Please," the guy said before shaking his head, "it's obvious that you believed that last thing you said just as much as we do." Lexa had to bite her tongue because that sounded rich coming from this pair who seemed to both be in love with the other and yet had done absolutely nothing about it. Plus as far as Lexa was concerned, there was no possible way that Clarke felt what she did. In her mind, it just wasn't possible.

"Aren't the two of you supposed to be helping Bell move into his new apartment?" The voice behind her held a sense of amused irritation and the brunette couldn't help the small smirk that overtook her lips. Even the air around her now seemed less heavy, though definitely much more charged.

Octavia rolled her eyes before giving Clarke a look that said that there was really nothing she wanted to do less than help some guy move his stuff. "My brother can wait. The last time we helped him move the asshat gave us each one bottle of beer and once slice of pizza as a thank you. If he wanted us to be prompt, he would give us better incentives."

"He is your brother," Lincoln said as if that was supposed to mean something to Octavia but it just seemed to mean more to him than it did to her.

"Fine," she said as she threw up her hands into the air before turning back to look at Clarke. "But you do realize that I can question Lexa anytime I want to right? I mean it's not like I don't know when she shows up to this place."

Lexa's eyebrows furrowed together at the look of distress on the blonde's face as she began to wonder just how horrible it would be to have Octavia put her through the ringer. Though as long as the girl avoided questions about her writing and income, it really should have been fine. Though that thought now made Lexa feel uneasy.

It has been easy, at first, keeping her books a secret. It gave her the anonymity that she needed to be just another girl sitting in a coffee shop, enjoying her day. It meant that Clarke and everyone else here didn't look at her like she was something special, something that she wasn't. She didn't want that. She just wanted to be Lexa. And yet the longer she went not telling them, the more and more she felt as if she were falling into this rabbit hole of lies that was becoming harder and harder to escape from. And the longer this went on the more she feared how they would react once she did tell them. Would they be angry? Would they start treating her differently? Everything felt so good now and the last thing that she wanted was for all of it to change. She kept her mouth shut.

"You'll have to forgive my friends, Lex." She pulled herself out of her thoughts to see blue eyes looking at her apologetically. "Apparently they have this delusional sense of responsibility when it comes to outsiders."

"We're just trying to look out for you, Griff!" Raven walked up to the table with a coffee cup in hand, an empty one with nothing drawn on it before handing it to Lexa with a raised eyebrow as if she was just waiting to see a reaction.

Lexa couldn't help the slight drop in her shoulders and she hoped that the slight downturn in her lips wasn't noticeable but it seemed that Clarke had been watching her just as closely as Raven had because she looked downright guilty. "After work yesterday I went straight to the studio and I locked myself in there painting." Then a slow, shy smile crossed her lips as she avoided Lexa's gaze. "You know what it's like when inspiration strikes. After what happened with Finn and with you all I could see were colors and images. It's like if I didn't get my hands on brushes and paint I was going to lose a part of myself. I didn't even realize that six hours had passed until Raven came and got me and made me go to bed."

The look on her face was slightly whimsical and it reminded Lexa of the girl's Thanksgiving cup painting and she couldn't help the large smile on her own face. "I thought you said you've never had inspiration hit you _that_ hard before," Lexa said with a smirk as she remembered what Clarke had told her after the first time they met. She took a drink of her coffee, no longer disappointed in its lack of decoration and the liquid warmly coated its path down her throat.

Clarke's cheeks turned a slight shade of pink. "Yeah, well I guess there's a first time for everything."

Both girls were too busy shyly looking at one another to notice the other three around the table shooting each other amused, knowing looks before Raven finally broke the silence with a clearing of her throat and a rather devious grin. The look made Clarke's smile drop as if she had seen that kind of look from her friend before and knew exactly what it meant.

"So Lex, do you have any plans for Saturday night?"

Lexa hated the fact that she didn't even have to think about it to know that she didn't have any plans Saturday night. She hadn't made any friends besides the people in this room since moving to this city and even before she had, she had alienated herself from a lot of her friends and had spent too many Saturday nights at home to count. But she wanted to seem a little less pathetic than she felt so she pretended to at least contemplate it a minute.

"I think I'm free this Saturday," she said and she couldn't tell what emotions were currently crossing the blonde's face in response to her answer. Nervousness? Excitement? Worry?

"Good," Raven said as she and Octavia exchanged smiles, "then you should come over to our place around eight. We are having a small get together at our apartment and we need another person for our poker night."

"Poker night at your place?" Lexa asked as if the invitation had been in another language. She wasn't quite sure why it was they were inviting her over for a poker night.

"Yeah," Octavia answered instead. "Clarke, Raven and I all live in this really nice apartment and once a month we have a small get together with friends." She said it as if there was absolutely no other ulterior motive to invite her over but Lexa knew better. Either way all it took was a small glance towards a smiling now hopeful looking blonde for Lexa's decision to be made.

"I'm in, it sounds like a lot of fun."

It seemed as if the group had gotten what they wanted because not a minute later they all seemed to scatter like leaves in the wind. Octavia and Lincoln both left saying that they were ready to go help Octavia's brother and Raven said she had to go take some inventory in the back but not before handing Clarke Lexa's cup and telling her to give Lexa their address and Clarke's cell phone number. Lexa had to admit that her cup at least felt a little complete now that it had Clarke's elegant scrawl along the side even if it was just a series of numbers and letters.

"This is the first time I've gotten a girl's number because her friend made her give it to me," Lexa said in an amused tone that she hoped didn't convey the anxiousness in her voice. But it seemed as if the blonde hadn't heard her.

"You don't have to go if you don't want to." Clarke looked nervous and Lexa couldn't help but feel her heart plummet into her stomach.

"I won't go if you don't want me to."

The moment she said it Clarke looked appalled as if she had never meant for Lexa to take it that way. It seemed like a knee-jerk reaction as Clarke leaned across the table to pull Lexa's hand into hers shooting bolts of electricity up Lexa's arms as she remembered the press of that hand against her chest, gripping tightly to fabric. "No! That's not what I meant. I want you to come, I really want you to come, I just don't want you to feel obligated to go just because Raven invited you."

Lexa couldn't help the sly smile on her face, Clarke's statement suddenly giving her a lot more confidence than she had had a moment before. "You _really_ want me to come?" Lexa had meant to emphasize the word 'really' to repeat what Clarke had said and tease her about her enthusiasm but not a moment later a devilish smile flittered across Clarke's lips and the sexual innuendo that could have been taken by her reiteration finally clicked in her head.

"I didn't mean it like that," Lexa said before the blonde could respond something that she instantly regretted because Clarke looked almost sad about being robbed of whatever it was she was about to say, likely something that would have made it even harder for the brunette to concentrate than it already was. Maybe it was a good thing then.

In the end Clarke just shrugged pretending to look indifferent as she said "well that's too bad," before a customer walked in forcing Clarke to get up though she seemed as reluctant as the brunette felt as she pulled her hand out of hers. Lexa immediately took a drink of her coffee to busy her now empty and shaking hand. She spent the next moment trying not to think of what Clarke meant by 'that's too bad' and trying even harder not to watch her backside while she walked away.

_She had spent her entire life being taught to keep everyone at an arm's distance away from her. But as she looked at the blonde smiling and laughing amongst her friends, friends that seemed to follow her without any threatened obligation she began to wonder if a world where she let people close and into her life was possible. She tried not to think about the girl that had left her heart broken and open only months before because she had just been one of countless experiences that proved that her parents and teachers had been correct."_

She signed the piece of paper with her own phone number before nodding a goodbye in the baristas' direction. She walked away wondering if she was ready for this. It felt like the start of a new beginning, a new life. She didn't know if she was thrilled or terrified.

 

* * *

 

**Clarke (6:45pm): Raven said to tell you to bring $50 to buy in so that she can steal your hard earned money. Though you will personally be my hero if you can be the one to destroy her winning streak. She's been insufferable for months now.**

Lexa couldn't help the smile that fell onto her face, the same ridiculous smile she had gotten over every text that the blonde had sent her in the past two days since leaving her her number at the coffee shop. If Lexa had to choose, she would say that giving it had been the best decision of her life.

**Lexa (6:52pm): I'll try my best not to disappoint you.**

"Yeah, you definitely aren't wearing that to a poker night."

Lexa looked down at her button up shirt and her black jeans before looking back at her sister who was sitting on the couch in sweatpants and a loose white t-shirt as she looked Lexa up and down over the rim of a tub of ice cream. Lexa had already complained that eating out of a tub and later putting it back in the freezer was gross and unsanitary. Anya had just shrugged and said that it meant more ice cream for her.

"What's wrong with it?" Lexa asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and shot Anya and exasperated look. There was nothing wrong with her outfit. She looked nice.

"It looks like you are trying way too hard. Like you're going to a dinner that your corporate boss invited you to saying that it was work casual and you are showing up in an attempt to show him that even your causal is business-like." Anya waved her spoon in the air as she motioned to the entirety of her outfit with a look of disdain.

"I'm meeting some of Clarke's friends today. I would like to make a good impression." Anya threw her a smirk at the mention of Clarke and Lexa attempted not to sigh. There was no hiding her crush from her sister once the realization of it had fully sunk in. She could hide her emotions from almost anyone as long as she tried, but not Anya. No amount of effort seemed to allow her the ability to keep her feelings to herself.

"Because nothing screams 'fuck me against the door of your bedroom' like wearing something that says 'I file my taxes two months before they're due like a boring adult'."

Lexa had this overwhelming urge to take Anya's ice cream tub out of her hands and dump what was less of the frozen sugar treat over her sister's head. "First off, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a responsible adult, Ahn. Maybe if we were all responsible adults then our economy would be better off." Anya opened her mouth as if to object but Lexa didn't let her. "And second, I am not going tonight in hopes that Clarke will take me up against her bedroom door." Though she really wouldn't be opposed to it, not that she would admit that aloud.

The look Anya gave her was that of disappointment, a look that said she couldn't believe that the two of them were at all related. "There is absolutely no one that I know that needs to get laid more than you do. I mean how long has it been?" Lexa looked away, refusing to give her an answer of a year and a half. But her inability to answer only made Anya shake her head before stabbing her spoon into her tub and placing it on the table before getting up and walking into Lexa's room with a trailing "I'm going to get you laid if it's the last thing I do."

Lexa contemplated just leaving her apartment and ignoring the mumblings coming from her room, words muffled by the walls separating them. But as she looked down at the black watch on her wrist she knew leaving now would mean getting to Clarke's place forty-five minutes early which just seemed desperate. She may not be fully onboard with Anya's newest plan but even that seemed better than her alternative. It was with a dejected sigh that she dropped her head and went into her room to follow Anya. And why not? Following Anya was something that pretty much summarized her whole childhood.

In the time it took her to contemplate entering her bedroom, Anya had pulled out a black henley and some fitted jeans with boots. It wasn't an exceptional outfit by any means but as she opened her mouth to object Anya just thrust the shirt in her direction. "Just trust me when I say that you look exceptional in a henley, almost as if they made shirts like that with you in mind. Not only that but a simple outfit prevents everyone from knowing that you're trying too hard. No girl envisions the desperately swooning mess going down on her. They want the badass, the girl too confident in herself to put hours of thought into her wardrobe even though we know she does."

Lexa just rolled her eyes. "I don't want it to look like I don't care."

"Which is why you'll wear your contacts and put on some eyeliner," Anya said as she flippantly threw her hands up as if this was something that Lexa was supposed to know. "Trust me, Lex. This girl will be all over you if you play your cards right." Then she looked expectantly at Lexa as if waiting for her to give her props for her pathetic yet clever pun. Lexa would never do her the service.

"Clarke is more than just some girl I'm trying to seduce. Honestly, is there anything you think about other than sex?"

Anya just sighed dramatically and gave her a pained look. "I haven't had sex in two weeks. How am I supposed to think of anything other than sex?"

Two weeks. Lexa had hit that landmark many many months back. "And I hope you decide to hold off on having any in this apartment."

Anya shrugged. "And this is why I'm moving to the place across the hall. You are the least fun roommate ever." Lexa frowned but not a moment later she was back to wearing her ridiculous smile as her phone buzzed in her pocket.

**Clarke (7:15pm): Something tells me that won't at all be a problem**

"Try not to make that sappy face when you try and seduce Coffee Cup Girl." Lexa flipped off her sister before she pushed the older girl out of her room to change. "Save that finger for something more useful!" The older girl shouted through the door. Lexa couldn't help but blush, trying hard not to think of the 'more useful' things that her sister intended. Maybe Anya had been right, it really had been much too long.

 

* * *

 

The walk to the apartment six blocks away was spent hyping herself up, encouraging herself, reaffirming that this was just a casual get together and that she would be just fine. And it worked. She found herself calm and confident as she entered the apartment building, as she entered the elevator, as she stepped into the hallway. But all that shattered as she found herself standing in front of the door with her fist held high, ready to knock but somehow unable.

It became real in that moment that this was Clarke's apartment. This is where Clarke lived, where she ate, where she slept, where she showered. Lexa had to immediately shake her head over that last item. Thinking about the blonde naked as her hands roamed her body under a stream of hot water was doing nothing good for her nerves.

Slowly Lexa lowered her hand. This was a bad idea. She had no reason to be here. This party was for Clarke, Raven, Octavia and their friends. She didn't belong here. She should just head back home and join her sister on the couch and possibly muster up the courage to ignore her own distaste of her sister's habits long enough to enjoy a few spoonfuls of rocky road. But before she could turn and walk away without anyone being the wiser, the door swung open and brown eyes looked at her surprised.

He towered over her by a few inches, his dark brown, nearly black wavy hair covered his forehead and fell towards a strong jaw line that may have rivaled her own. He was in a simple white shirt and jeans with a bright white smile that appeared larger as he looked her up and down, clearly pleased with what he saw. Lexa wanted to roll her eyes but on the off chance that this was one of Clarke's friends she refrained, not wanting to appear rude.

"Why hello there," he said with as much suaveness as he could muster, "and who might you be?"

"Someone completely out of your league, Bell Boy." Raven appeared from behind the man standing in the doorway before pushing him teasingly out of the way. "Nice of you to join us," but then she paused as if noticing that she wasn't wearing her glasses, "Lexa." She wrinkled her nose slightly as if she disliked the name she had just subjected herself to saying. It sounded just as weird to Lexa's ears.

"So you're Lexa," the guy said with a grin as he held up his hands almost like he was signaling a cease and desist from his previous attempt at flirtation. "I'm Bellamy," he said finally with his hand outstretched. His grip was firm and Lexa didn't doubt that he was the kind of guy who insisted that he was in fact the alpha male in any group he was a part of.

They both led her inside as Raven slung an arm over her shoulders as if taking her under her wing as she pointed out the apartment. It was rather large, surprising for a group of girls who worked minimum wage at a coffee shop. She doubted that they made enough in tips to support this, but she didn't say a word, not wanting the topic of finances to come up. Raven offered an answer anyways. "Clarke's dad bought this place and he's renting it out to us for really cheap. He saw the upstairs loft and knew that it would be a perfect studio for Clarke so that she could paint until she was famous and successful enough to get her own exhibit space."

Lexa found herself smiling. Clarke had told her stories about her father, about his unbound love and generosity and it seemed that the blonde hadn't embellished the story one bit. Lexa knew that when her father was alive that he loved her very much but she doubted he would have done something like this just to make it possible for her to follow her passion.

"You know, I met Clarke first. It really should be me living here instead of Octavia," the guy said with a grin just in time for Octavia to walk into the room and slug him in the shoulder.

"Clarke likes me way better than she likes you, Bell." Octavia turned to Lexa with a smile, "I see you've met my doofus of a brother. How desperately do you need a beer?"

She wanted to play it cool and collected but her nerves seemed to make her honest. "I could definitely use one of those." The girl just grinned before heading back to the kitchen to be a good hostess.

"Hi Lexa."

Lexa was surprised to see the guy staring back at her, not realizing after two months that he was actually friends with the trio. She seemed even more surprised that he knew her name. "Hey Monty," she said in response, happy that she had been observant enough to know his.

"I see Raven has suckered in some newcomer into handing over her money." Lexa turned to see another man leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed and a beer in hand. He had this air about him that screamed disinterest. His brown eyes seemed to haze over her in a look that said he didn't care enough to really pay her much notice. And yet Lexa felt as if she would really like him.

"Don't be an ass, Murphy." Lexa's heart rate seemed to double in speed as she saw the blonde bounding though one of the doors in the apartment with a large smile on her face walking straight over to Lexa and pulling the girl into a hug.

If you asked Lexa in that moment, she would have said that hugging was her favorite pastime, that she could do it for hours on end without complaint, in fact she would be happy to do it. Strong arms draped themselves around her neck pulling her closer until her chest was pressed up against Clarke's and Lexa did all she could do ignore the thirteen year old boy in her brain that kept shouting to her that Clarke's boobs were touching her. It took Lexa a good moment before she could command her arms to move from her side before her hands pressed against the girl's back, firm but still soft as if she hadn't spent much time in the gym lifting weights. Not that Lexa at all minded, she liked soft. She suppressed the part of her curious mind that wondered how other parts of Clarke's body would feel against her hands.

If Lexa had any sense of time she would have realized that their hug lasted a moment longer than a friendly hug but in Clarke's arms time seemed to speed up and when the blonde let go of her with a sparkle in her eyes Lexa reluctantly did the same. It ended far too quickly in her opinion, and the look in Raven's eyes told her that she knew exactly what she had been thinking.

"Hey," Lexa said with a nervous grin. She would have fist pumped into the air in celebration for her voice maintaining a cool disposition if it didn't completely negate her latest success in not stuttering or sounding like a timid field mouse.

"Hey," Clarke said sounding a tab bit breathless as she shot Lexa a bright smile that seemed to knock the air out of the brunette's lungs. She felt as if she could break apart into a million weightless pieces and float away under that smile. Coming here was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

"Griffin, do you need to poke her before we get to the actual poker? Because while your eye fucking is tots adorbs," he said those last two words with a mocking smear, "I would prefer to lose my money to the evil genius sometime this year."

The happy look on Clarke's face turned into a snear as she shot a look at the guy behind her. "Murphy, I swear to God that if you don't shut your damn mouth I'm going to tell Emori about the time I caught you crying while watching The Notebook."

"You said you wouldn't be caught dead watching that movie when I asked you to watch it with me last week!" A girl whined as she entered into the apartment building without knocking, a case of beer in her hand. Murphy was now glaring right back at Clarke, upset that she had outed his movie experience to his girlfriend.

"This is going to be a fun night." Lexa accepted the beer that Octavia handed her, though she wasn't quite sure she was as enthusiastic as the other brunette about the night in question.

It seemed that Clarke had never mentioned to her friends and roommates that Lexa's dad worked as a private security detail to high target celebrities between tours of duty. Though maybe she didn't see the relevance in it when allowing Raven to invite her to a poker game. The thing with being in private security meant that her father spent a lot of time learning how to study people, to see little shifts in movement to help determine whether or not something was a threat. And maybe that wouldn't have mattered had he not taught his daughters this same skill as a means to protect themselves. Though if Lexa was honest, she was sure he had never planned for her to use those skills during a game of cards.

Everyone had a tell, it was inevitable despite a person's best efforts. It was an unconscious twist or movement that signaled happiness or distress and it took Lexa all of ten hands to determine the tells of everyone at that table. It was almost unfair though Lexa would never let that stop her from taking down the table in front of her. She was many things, but a graceful loser was not one of them. She didn't care if Jesus himself was at this table, she was ruthless.

Monty, while emotionless in the coffee shop as he coded away on his computer, was the easiest person to read. He would try desperately not to smile when he looked at a good hand and he was hardly ever successful in his attempts. His friend Jasper was much harder to read only because he seemed high out of his mind, though it didn't matter when five hands in he sort of just stopped playing and everyone else just shrugged as if it was common place. Murphy, while he seemed to spend all of his time pretending that he was apathetic about everything seemed to get invested in good hands and his thumb would quietly thump against the table.

Octavia played very much like her personality suggested, a little wild and unabashedly cutthroat. But she would bet more aggressively whenever she was playing a shit hand. Lincoln, obsessed with Octavia would steal glances at her as if he was happily going to impress her with his good hand and keep his gaze away from her when he had a bad hand. Bellamy would lean back in his chair, more cocky than normal when he had something good going.

It took Lexa the longest to read Raven. She could see why it was that the girl had won most of the games she played against this group. It seemed that the moment the girl looked at her cards, she appeared as if she were solving a puzzle, as if she was mathematically determining the probability of her hand and seemed to bet accordingly to either scare people off or to draw them in. And then as if she were being clever, every forth hand she would play whatever cards she had until the river. But in the end it was her eyes that gave her away. When she had a hand with a high probability of success she seemed to sweep the table twice in a row as if double checking her math before placing her bet.

Lexa would have had this game in the bag early for the exception of the blonde haired, blue eyed goddess sitting right beside her. Clarke's tell seemed to light a fire in the depths of Lexa's stomach as she found herself staring while the artist sucked in her lower lip before softly biting it when a good hand was sent her way. It meant that every good hand Clarke had made it all the more difficult to concentrate especially as she imagined herself being the one to bite into that lip. She did exactly what she had to.

"Did you know you bite your lip when you have a good hand?" Lexa said it softly into the shell of the girl's ear who seemed to jump at the action.

To her credit, the barista kept a smooth face as if she hadn't heard anything as she slowly released her lip. "Does anyone else have a tell?" The breathe was hot against her ear but it made Lexa shiver. She nodded in response and Clarke beamed beside her. "Can you tell me?"

Lexa gulped down the lump in her throat before leaning back over. "I'll tell you one, so pick wisely."

It seemed as if the blonde had a knack for grudges because while it would have been more beneficial to ask about Raven she instead asked about the boy that had broken up their greeting half an hour prior. Her reward was more than she could have asked for, and yet was probably the worst thing that could happen to her libido. Every time Clarke beat Murphy at a hand she would reach under the table and squeeze Lexa's knee in celebration. Every squeeze seemed as if it were done against a muscle that lead directly up into her groin. It took effort for her not to squirm in her seat.

"Shouldn't you be on your way home by now?" It was nearing close to midnight and the poker game had been over about an hour ago. And it seemed that Raven still hadn't gotten over the fact that she had been defeated by the newcomer who now had a stack of bills in her back pocket.

"Reyes, do you mind? Lexa and I were in the middle of talking about this documentary we both watched about how this diving expedition found-"

"Bell, if I have to hear you say one more word about deep sea exploration, or if I have to hear this cheating liar talk anymore about how amazing squids are, I swear that I will place an explosive device under each of your pillows tonight so that I never have to hear either one of you speak again!" Raven glared at the two of them before plopping herself into the chair across from Lexa.

"Don't be bitter because you lost, Ray." Clarke plopped herself down on the couch right beside Lexa, their legs touching, Lexa's thigh burning.

"Only because she obviously cheated."

"I didn't cheat," Lexa said for what seemed like the hundredth time this hour. It wasn't her fault that Raven didn't wear glassed to hide her tell.

"Liar," Raven muttered beneath her breath just as Lincoln and Octavia sat down to join them. Lexa didn't miss that their hands were grasped together and Lexa sent a smirk in Octavia's direction who just blushed.

"How about we talk about something more exciting than deep sea exploration?" Octavia suggested.

"You mean like the wonders of watching paint dry?" Raven asked bitterly.

But Octavia just smirked before turning to Lexa. "I was thinking more like our top three Celebrities that make your _wish list_."

This seemed to cheer Raven up immediately as Lexa asked. "Wish list?"

Raven answered well before Octavia could even open her mouth. "If you could sleep with three celebrities who would they be, Lex?" Lexa couldn't miss the glare Clarke was shooting in her roommates' directions.

Lexa wasn't quite sure what had the blonde angry, though maybe she was upset because she thought that the writer had been uncomfortable by the question. Lexa answered quickly to quell that thought. "Emma Watson, Margot Robbie and Ali Krieger."

The grin on Raven's face grew wider as she turned to look at the blonde before saying, "see, Clarke, even this lying cheater who cheats has a more normal list than you do!"

Clarke groaned, "I have a normal list!"

"You don't," Octavia said with a laugh.

"Who's on your list?" Lexa found herself asking, suddenly curious.

Clarke just sighed before rolling her eyes. "Natalie Portman, Zac Efron and Alexandria Woodson."

Lexa started choking on the beer she was drinking as her head swam, trying to figure out whether she had just imagined Clarke saying that last name. Alexandria Woodson? As in the pseudonym she used for her books. Did Clarke find out who she was? A weight lifted off her chest for about five seconds before it came crashing back down.

"See, even the cheater thinks it's insane for you to have someone on your list when you have no idea what it is they look like!"

"I don't need to know what she looks like, Ray. With the way she writes you know that she has to be absolutely stunning."

And there it was. Lexa was somehow on Clarke's celebrity wish list and the blonde didn't even know it. She was attracted to the words she wrote, to the stories she told and yet had absolutely no idea who she was. And Clarke's confession seemed to just make Lexa's heart sit heavier in her chest, for the first time hating herself for the fact that she hadn't been honest about her writing and who she was. How was she supposed to tell her now?

"The whole point of this game is based off of someone's looks and personality," Octavia whined as if she had heard Clarke's logic one too many times. "As you've never seen her, and she has never been interviewed, you can't choose some unknown phantom author!"

"Yes I can! She writes with so much passion that you can tell she's pouring herself and her personality into those books. It's written in between the lines, in words not used, in traits written that people generally wouldn't notice. I dare say I know her better than you know some actor who reads scripts and plays parts. Plus she's obviously good in bed."

"There is no way you can know that," Lexa found herself choking out. Clarke thinking about her (though unknown to anyone in the room) sexual prowess was too much.

Clarke turned to give her a pointed. "You've read the Commander series, right? You read the third book?"

Lexa nodded slowly, not really trusting her mouth not to blurt that she had done more than just read the last book.

"Then you obviously read that sex scene she wrote between Alicia and Cynthia."

Lexa found herself blushing because she knew exactly which sex scene she had been referring. Lexa had refrained from writing any in depth intimate scenes in her previous two books, mostly because of Alicia's young age in the first and the fact that in the second the couple was just becoming more than friends. But the scene in the last book that Clarke had been referring to had been written after Costia had left her. It was raw, it was passionate, it was angry. Hate sex, goodbye sex, the sex the couple had after Alicia found out the truth about Cynthia being a spy for Nina and deciding to screw her one last time before revealing that she knew and banishing her from both her tent and her lands; still too in love with her to have her killed for her betrayal. Plus, it wasn't Lexa's style to go around killing her LGBT characters. Her people had enough shit to deal with to have to put up with that on top of everything else.

"A girl who doesn't know her way around the bedroom would not write a scene as hot at that one was. There's no way it's possible."

"Clarke locked herself in her room for a few days after discovering that particular scene," Octavia teased and Clarke just threw her roommate a glare before choosing to pretend that she had said absolutely nothing at all.

"So I stand by it. She is hot, deep and great in bed."

"Oh please," Raven said as she shook her head. "If she were hot, she would most definitely have her picture on the back sleeve of her books and she would be doing interviews just because the WLW population would eat her up and buy everything they could Commander. She's probably some creepy old lady who spends her evenings stalking women before coming home to her mansion filled with like three hundred cats."

"Screw you, Ray."

"Maybe she just doesn't want to be famous," Lexa found herself saying through grit teeth, unable to keep the barista's words from stinging in her chest. Even if they didn't know they were talking about her, that wasn't something she wanted to hear.

"Oh come on, Bookworm. You're a somewhat decent looking girl," Clarke scoffed at the assessment. "Are you telling me that if you ever got a story published that you wouldn't want people to know that you were the one that wrote it?"

It seemed a bit surreal. The entirety of this exchange was almost funny enough to make her laugh and yet bitter enough that she wanted to just get up and leave so she could detest herself without anyone around to see her. "I don't think that I would want the attention." It was honest and yet no one seemed to believe her.

"All I'm saying is that it's asinine to have her on your list, Griff."

Clarke just rolled her eyes at Raven and shook her head. "And one of these days we are finally going to see who Alexandria Woodson is and she is going to be hot as fuck and you are going to have to admit that the 'greatest genius of our time' was wrong."

"I'll do you one better. When we find out who she is and realize that she belongs nowhere near anyone's celebrity list, you will finally draw me on our coffee shop board in the back."

"And when we find out that I'm right, you will declare on your precious board that I am smarter than you are and leave it up there for at least a month!"

"Deal!" Raven said, standing immediately along with Clarke before they shook hands.

"I thought you said you learned to never make deals with Raven," Lexa finally said into Clarke's ear when she sat back down even closer to the brunette than before. She was sure she would have enjoyed it much more had this overbearing guilt not been sitting heavily in her gut. She had every opportunity to tell them that she was Alexandria Woodson and she sat there and said nothing. She was a horrible person.

"She's got to lose sometime and I figure if you can beat her at poker then I can beat her in a bet."

The topic of conversation turned to other things. They mostly revolved around stories about the group's past as they explained embarrassing things about one another to Lexa and slowly she allowed the guilt to hide away into the corners of her mind as she succumbed to the humor and wit of the people surrounding her.

They were in the middle of a story about how Raven had beat some frat boys in keg stands at some party a few years back when a soft pressure landed against Lexa's shoulders. The smell of lavender and vanilla flooded her senses as she looked over to see Clarke leaning her head against the writer's shoulder as she listened to Raven and Octavia arguing about the length of time Raven had lasted.

It was almost instinctual when Lexa shifted her arm to wrap it around the blonde's shoulder so that the artist would be more comfortable. The fact that she had done it hit her only after Clarke shifted slightly to nuzzle into the crook of her arm. Her heart beat quickly as a warmth seemed to fill her body with the knowledge that Clarke's body was pressed up against hers. She wanted nothing more than to press her nose into Clarke's golden locks to let her scent fill her senses and engrave itself deep into her memory.

"Thanks," Clarke murmured just low enough for her to hear.

"Anytime," Lexa said back and both girls smiled remembering the last time Lexa had promised the blonde 'anytime'.

"You're really comfortable."

"Are you trying to call me soft?" Lexa asked. She would have been insulted if she could think clearly, something that obviously wasn't possible with Clarke this close.

Clarke chucked and her body seemed to vibrate with it forcing Lexa to take in a deep breath forcing her chest to move the blonde's head slightly up and down. "I'm just saying that this is nice."

"It is," Lexa said without the slightest hesitation. She missed the way Raven and Octavia threw knowing looks between each other when they had both finally seen the two girls snuggled up on the couch. She missed the way that Lincoln eventually moved to hold Octavia in the exact same way she was holding Clarke and the look of 'finally' that Raven shot in her friend's direction and the way Octavia blushed in response.

She heard the words around her enough to participate in the conversation and throw in a few things that had the group laughing. But as she walked home she couldn't really remember any of it. All she couldn't remember was how Clarke didn't move from her position until it was late enough that Lexa knew she had no reason to stay and the way that Clarke hugged her deep and close as they said goodbye.

Maybe, just maybe this was the start of something great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left me kudos and comments on this story, it was a nice motivation this week. Work has been really tough and I've had a few really long days and getting emails with comments made the work day go by a lot smoother. You guys are the best.
> 
> So the next chapter is likely going to be the chapter where Anya just might wander into the coffee shop. It is also the chapter that might very well be the reason for the rating on this story. As always, I will try and get that one out to you on Sunday!


	4. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey Everyone! It seems that I have some slight apologies to make here. First, I said last chapter that this story would be 5 and now it's moved to 6 - though I feel like some of you may not complain about that. And then I said that this would be the chapter of the rating change but that's now chapter 5. Though there is a fun little scene in this one to help make up for that part. I hope you all enjoy this one!

> Look at what mistake  
>  I'm making now  
>  I'm jumping right on in  
>  When I know it's gonna end somehow
> 
> I've told these stories  
>  And I've said these lies  
>  I ignore what my heart tells me  
>  And I break it every time
> 
> I never think I lose  
>  But it's a losing game  
>  And I'm breaking all the rules  
>  Thinking that I'm gonna change
> 
> \- Mistakes by Lake Street Drive

 

This feeling fluttering around inside of her chest, a tight constriction of strong muscles made by a blood starved organ, it was nothing new. It was inevitable like like conflict, like weakness, like growing old. It was as much a part of her as her mind, her hands, her face. And yet for the first time in her twenty-eight years, she finally felt as if this feeling inside of her chest, this fast beating heart, the quickness of breath, was exhilarating.

Lexa could remember a time when she used to date. Holding someone's hand for the first time, hugging them close, becoming intimate with them - it made her heart patter and her mind race. But it was a feeling that never really lasted. That wasn't to say she didn't enjoy those things, she very much did, but that excitement, that thrill? It never lasted more than a few weeks. Even with Costia. One month into knowing her, two weeks into dating her, things felt more comfortable than exciting. She had pined over girls in her past, girls who had no interest in her, girls who had an interest with her but the timing was wrong, none of those lasted longer than three weeks. And yet it had been nearing three months and the sight of Clarke Griffin alone seemed to make her weak in the knees.

Three weeks had passed since poker night at the trio's apartment and the first week of February was upon them with an icy nip in the morning air that reminded its inhabitants of winter and a warming of hands and feet in the afternoon sun that seemed to make sweet promises of spring. She could remember when she was younger, how her mom would stand in the winter sun and take in a deep breath and say that the smell of young love was in the air. Adult love seemed to rear its head on the first day of spring. Lexa used to laugh and roll her eyes, enjoying her mother's false romanticism of the seasons as hyperbole. But now it seemed that she was no longer immune to the scent of it.

If young love had a scent Lexa was sure it smelled of lavender and vanilla mixed with this wistful smell that she couldn't place. It smelled like fresh air and something clean, like what she imagined stardust to smell like. And she embraced it, inhaled it, drowned herself in it with every brush of the hand, with every curl of the arm and purposely placed forehead. If Lexa's letter about Costia changed the way they communicated with one another, poker night changed the way they physically interacted with one another.

Most coffee shop visits were started with a long hug hello and an even longer hug goodbye is if neither girl wanted the evening to end. Every shared laugh was accompanied by hands held atop the coffee table followed by melancholy fingers dancing against open palms and shy grins. Every night out with the trio resulted in Lexa's arm flung around the back of Clarke's chair at the end of the night before the blonde would yawn and lean her body close until a soft drop of the head against the brunette's shoulder let Lexa sigh a breath of relief.

But as much as she adored being around the blonde, as much as she craved her touch and relished in her presence, confusion loomed over her like a storm cloud that refused to give her peace in the same way they did over cartoons of saddened characters from her childhood.

What were they doing? What were they? Were they just friends? It seemed like they were more than just friends but they hadn't kissed beyond that first time in front of Finn's watchful eye. And yet they spoke to each other of private moments, of things they would never share with anyone else which made them more than just regular run of the mill friends. Best friends perhaps? She cringed at the thought. She wanted so much more than friendship when it came to the blonde haired, blue eyed artist.

And for all that Lexa told Clarke about: the time she sang an N'Sync song at her elementary school's talent show, that time got sent to the principle's office after she kicked a boy in the balls after he touched her without permission, her coming out story, her father's death, her mother's eventual breakdown, how her mother had remarried and hadn't had time to see either of her daughters in years. She had yet to tell Clarke the one thing, the one glaring omission, that she was in fact Alexandria Woodson.

She had opportunity after opportunity when Clarke would debate her on her, apparently, favorite book series of all time. Lexa would open her mouth to say something but would catch Clarke looking off into the distance as if the story of her books had her magically lost in another world and she just couldn't bring herself to say it. I'm Alexandria Woodson. Three words that got caught in her throat and refused to fall off her tongue. It was a humming guilt that plagued her along with the cloud of uncertainty. Every day, every touch, every hug was becoming even more amazing and all the more conflicting.

_"We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."_

Lexa watched as the corner of Clarke's lip inched up into a sly grin as her nails slid across Lexa's upturned palm where her fingers curled inward to shimmer against the underside of the blonde's fingers. Clarke's other hand held up her quarter sheet of paper. "Robert Frost," the blonde said with a confident conviction.

"He was always my favorite poet," Lexa said with a shrug, trying to hide her impressed smile.

"My dad always liked his poem _Fire and Ice_." Blue eyes shined brightly and Lexa couldn't help but swallow deeply. She had loved that particular poem since middle school and for the first time in her life she held with those who favored fire.

 

* * *

 

"You do realize that this is some stalker level insanity, right?"

The back of Lexa's forearm trailed across her head to try and wipe away the sweat that now caked her brow and hung to her lips filling her mouth with the taste of salt that always seemed to accompany hard labor, much like her sister's complaints. "Hand me the level, will you?" she asked, ignoring Anya completely.

Anya sighed and handed her the tool while she shook her head. "I'm just saying! If you don't want to throw them away, it would be much more efficient and much less Ed Gein of you to just stack the cups and store them where they won't be in the way."

The thought of stacking Clarke's cups felt too much like storing the Mona Lisa in her basement to be lost and forgotten. And so maybe Clarke wasn't de Vinci and these cups weren't meant for the Lourve, but that wasn't the point. The point was that these cups were art. They were meant to be seen and cherished and put on display.

"Ahn, are you or are you not happy with what I've written for the forth book so far?" Lexa knew she was trying to appeal to the business side of her sister that would encourage her to crack an egg over her head and let the yolk decide the next path of the story as long as it meant getting well written words to a page.

Anya's head fell to the side as she gave her a disbelieving look. "Really, Alexandria? You are going to tell me that these cups that Clarke drew on are inspiration to one of the best books you've ever written?"

Lexa looked at Anya and then to the rows of shelves that she had already build in her study then to the sea of cups that had been carefully placed all over her writing desk and floor, a neatly organized mess. Instead of answering her sister she walked over to the cups and carefully picked one up as if it were a fragile artifact.

"See this bear?" Lexa asked, holding up the cup for her sister to see the bear with intense eyes watching over a curled up deer as if protecting it. "This is Alicia looking over Eliza after they escaped the pauna attack in the woods."

She then reached for a cup that held a detailed picture of a clock dripping from its center almost as if it were bleeding time. "This is when Eliza chose to do what was best for her people, her past staining her fingers in blood as she plunged the knife into her ex-lover's chest."

She then reached for a cup that had a balance beam that on one side held a realistic anatomical heart and on the other a brain. The lever almost appeared to be teetering as if trying to weight head over heart. "And this is the one Clarke drew last week. It's the scene where Eliza tells Alicia about the bomb and the Commander chooses to sacrifice her people for the better good."

With reverence she placed the cup on the shelf before turning back to her sister who seemed to be looking at the gathering of cups for the first time as if they were more than just scribbles on recycled paper. "Getting rid of these would be like getting rid of pieces of this book. And stacking them and putting them away is like never revisiting a chapter or rereading it once it has been written. I can't do that!"

"So you're building them a wall full of shelves as if they were each an intricately designed chapter of your book?" Anya's tone was more resigned, as if she were finally beginning to understand her sister's neurosis.

"Exactly!"

The older girl just sighed before reaching down to grab the electric screwdriver by her feet. "As long as you understand that it's very American Psycho chic."

"And yet it's nicer than that dump across the hall."

"Fuck off!" Anya said with a feigned anger. "My apartment is so much better than this future murder location." Lexa couldn't help but laugh. She really was enjoying her sister living so close.

 

* * *

 

"Your board seems a little angry."

Raven smiled across the table at Lexa before looking up to to admire her handiwork. It was apparent that the girl who was obsessed with building engines and working on cars outside of her day job was nowhere closer to getting herself a date for Valentine's Day. Though with the way girls flirted with Raven all throughout the day, Lexa found it all a bit surprising. If the girl didn't have a date it was because she didn't want one.

"Octavia isn't a big fan," she said with an amused tone, very pleased with herself.

_"Hey you! Yeah you! Stop making out with your boyfriend in the coffee shop. I don't care that he finally asked you on a real date after two years of being helplessly in love with each other. Some of us are trying to work here. Better yet we have customers trying to eat and that is just disgusting!"_

"It's a little lengthy," Lexa shrugged as she drew in some coffee. She had never enjoyed the hint of cinnamon so much before in her life.

"Well I'd say that we can't all be eloquent writers like you but since I don't have any real basis of your work, I'll hold off on my judgement. You can be a shit writer for all I know."

Lexa grinned. "Clarke thinks I'm alright."

"She's blinded and delusional. I can't trust her."

Lexa furrowed her brow and was about to ask her what she meant when a loud voice shouted into the empty coffee shop. "They chose me! The gallery chose my paintings!"

Lexa was up out of her seat just fast enough for Clarke to jump into her arms. Lexa hugged her close as excitement seemed to radiate off the blonde quickly becoming contagious to the point where Lexa couldn't help but laugh and lean back to lift the girl slightly off of her feet causing Clarke's laughter to dance against her own.

Lavender. Vanilla. Something uniquely Clarke. Excitement. Her mother's voice rang through Lexa's mind. The smell of young love. She tried not to blush when she released the blonde just in time for Raven to pull the artist into her own hug, even if much less enthusiastic.

"Which one did they pick?" Clarke had submitted a half dozen pieces to this gallery in the city that was looking to show off unknown artists. She had submitted them two weeks ago and hadn't heard anything since. As the showcase was to run all through March, Clarke's spirits had been falling slowly as the days had progressed. And now? Now she was smiling bright enough to rival the sun in brilliance.

"All of them!" Clarke said as she shook her head in disbelief. "They especially liked the Sky Girl piece."

"The piece you started that day Finn came here?" Lexa asked. The day that they had kissed, but she kept that tidbit to herself.

"That would be the one," and Lexa found herself being pulled into another hug.

Lexa hadn't seen the artwork in question yet, she had just heard about it from the trio on separate occasions. Octavia had suggested that it was the best painting she had ever seen Clarke make. Raven said she wasn't really a very good critic but that she felt this sense of both hope and despair when she looked at it and always left feeling in awe. She had said art usually didn't make her feel things. "Unless we are talking about the art work that some skilled women do on a pole to pay their way through college, now I definitely feel something strong from that type of art." And then Clarke had smacked her upside the head.

"Clarke, I am so happy for you. This is absolutely fantastic!"

The blonde pulled out of the hug pushing back so that she was holding the writer by the shoulders at arm's length. "Better than fantastic. I might actually sell my first big piece of art. And it can't be long until you finally get published with you going to so many meetings with that publishing firm. Can you believe it? We need to celebrate! We can do another poker night!"

Lexa felt guilt sweep over her long enough for her not to enjoy Raven's remark that she would never play with Lexa ever again. But her anguish didn't last long as a bell rang alerting the workers of a new customer followed immediately by Raven's eyes growing wide and her mouth falling slightly open. "Holy mother of all things mechanical. That has to be the hottest person I have ever seen!" She said it low enough that the person in question could not hear it.

Both Clarke and Lexa whipped their heads very conspicuously to see who had walked in and Lexa couldn't help but groan. "So, Lex, this is where you run off to four days a week?"

"You know her?" Raven practically hissed at her and Lexa couldn't miss the way that the customer's left eyebrow rose as she seemed to scan the mechanic up and down. She maintained her cool composure but Lexa knew she liked what she saw.

Lexa let out a long sigh before she said unenthusiastically. "Yeah, I know her alright."

"She's known me all her life actually. I've seen Lexa naked more times than I can count." Lexa didn't miss the way Clarke stiffened beside her and the way Raven shot a glare in her direction.

"All under the age of four," Lexa quickly responded to sooth over her friends. "This is Anya, my sister."

"So you're Anya!" Clarke said with a relieved smile as she walked up to her sister to give her a handshake and introduce herself. "I've heard so much about you, I'm Clarke."

Lexa suddenly found herself nervous as she watched the two most important women in her life interacting with one another. Especially with the look on Anya's face that said she was about to have far too much fun on her account. "Ah, so you're the hot barista that has Lex bringing home coffee cup after coffee cup." Lexa could feel herself blushing through the scowl she threw at her sister. "Lex, you never told me her hands were so soft." Then it was Clarke's turn to blush.

"Ignore her." Lexa said through grit teeth as someone behind her cleared her voice to get her attention. "Anya, this is Raven," she said to placate the girl making noises behind her. "Raven, this is Anya."

Anya went back to eyeing the barista and Raven had seemed to pull herself together long enough to play it cool. They both sort of just nodded in the others' direction before Anya asked, "so who does my baby sister have to sleep with for me to get a coffee around here?"

"I can help you out," Raven said with a shrug as if it were no big deal. But her eyes seemed to betray her, much like when she played poker. The pupils seemed to shake slightly of nervousness. Or maybe that was excitement. Whatever it was was something much more than the air of nonchalance she was putting out.

Raven crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head as if studying Lexa's sister. Lexa sighed, knowing that look. She had no doubt that her friend was just about to hit on her sister. "Let me guess," Raven said in a slightly flirtatious tone. "You like your coffee like you like your women: smooth, complex and with a rich brown coloring."

Anya's lip seemed to twitch as she forced herself not to smile. Instead she reached out to place her hands on the counter in between them before leaning down and saying in response. "I do like my coffee like I like my women but that would be strong, slightly bitter and able to keep me up all night."

There was a moment where Raven seemed to short circuit before visibly swallowing so that her throat jumped. In the nearly three months since she had been coming here, Lexa had never seen anyone throw the barista off of her flirting game and yet here she was as if unable to come up with a retort and Anya stood across from her enjoying every second of it.

"Think you can handle that, Raven?" Anya drew out her name tantalizingly. Raven nodded her head up and down quickly as if not trusting herself to say anything. "Great," Anya said with a small smile, "because I could really do with the caffeine." Then she walked away to join Lexa at her table with a victorious smirk. "And that kiddos, is how it's done," she said quietly and Clarke just shook her head in amazement.

"I think you broke my friend," Clarke laughed as she turned to look at Raven glaring at the coffee machine seemingly unpleased with her performance.

The three of them chatted for another five minuted before Raven came back with Anya's coffee. "So how should we celebrate if we aren't doing poker night?" Lexa asked.

"No poker night?" Anya asked. "That's too bad. I was kind of hoping you would invite me so that your new friends could watch me kick your ass."

"That was once," Lexa growled at her sister which just made her smirk all the more smug.

"Who said we aren't having poker night?" Raven asked as if she though Lexa was completely ridiculous. "Of course we are having poker night. We are all ready for Saturday."

"We are?" Clarke asked, shooting Raven a teasing smile which her roommate seemed to ignore.

"You're welcome to join us, Anya." Again she sounded as if she didn't care about what Anya said either way. The look in Anya's eyes as she regarded the girl told Lexa that was was very much curious about her.

"I can't really pass up the opportunity to show Lexie Pooh here who the real boss is."

"Lexie Pooh?" Raven and Clarke both asked simultaneously.

Anya may not make it to poker night. Hell, she might not even make it to Saturday. Lexa had every intention of murdering her sister the minute they got back to their apartment complex.

 

* * *

 

"This is complete fucking bullshit!"

Lexa smirked across the table at her sister as Octavia dealed out two cards to each of them. The last thirty minutes had just been between the sisters and yet not a person had left the table. Okay, so no one except Jasper who had found some bubbles and was blowing them out on the balcony after Raven yelled at him to not play with liquids on the couch. Despite the fact that no one had any chips left on the table, the interaction between Lexa and Anya was too intense to miss.

Thirty minutes ago, Anya held eighty percent of the chips at the table. But after a series of competitive banter, a handful of lucky draws and Lexa finally catching her sister's tell for the evening, everything had been reversed and it was now the brunette with the high stack and her sister with the scowl.

Lexa looked at her cards. A five of hearts and a six of spades. It was a shit hand but she held firm, forcing her jaw not to move the way it itched to before placing her cards onto the table. She looked over to see Anya placing her cards down on the table too and slightly pull them towards her. Whatever Anya had, it was a good hand. But Anya only raised the pot a few minor chips, likely to tease Lexa in. She decided to let it ride.

"I guess you've forgotten who the superior Woods child is," Lexa said with a cocked eyebrow as she watched Octavia place a king, a three and a seven onto the table. Suddenly Lexa's shit hand had a chance which is why she agreed to Anya's more aggressive bet.

A jack was next on the river. "You've just been lucky the last few hands. We both know I was always the much more exciting child. And that still holds true today. I'm nothing if not a good time." She shot a coy look at Raven who looked on the verge of salivating as a four of spades appeared on the table. There was nothing that Anya had that could beat her straight.

"And yet at the end of the night you will go home knowing that you still can't best your little sister." It was a taunt that she knew would force Anya to bet big. There was little that brought her more joy that beating her sister, it didn't matter the medium of the competition whether it be cards, sports or even scrabble. They had spent their whole childhood in competition and Lexa lost just as much as she had won. But cards? That was her game.

"Hey Blondie," Anya said in a tone that made Lexa's blood run cold. "Do you think you could do me a favor and put on a really low cut top and just sit next to me so that my kid sister becomes far too useless to count chips, let alone play cards?"

The comment made Clarke grin, a grin that Lexa was powerless to look away from because it was suggestive and held intent that made Lexa clench her thighs together. "Why? Is that Lexa's weakness?" She asked, not taking her eyes off the brunette who was now gripping a poker chip tightly in her hand.

"I have no weakness," Lexa said with a shrug which just caused Anya to laugh.

"You mean you haven't told them about the Serenade Fiasco of 2006?"

"The what?" Raven and Clarke both said in unison as the three roommates all leaned in towards Anya, very interested in the story that plagued the summer after Lexa's senior year of high school.

Anya may as well have been the Cheshire Cat with the grin she was currently sporting. Lexa gave her a pleading look hoping, praying, that her sister would for once in her life not attempt to embarrass her in front of someone she was infatuated with. "It happened the summer before Lexa went away to Brown-"

"I will fold my hand and you can take the pot," Lexa pleaded but Anya just smiled wider. Her sister thought she had the better hand. In her mind, it wasn't worth it for her to take that deal.

"There was this girl, Cindy, that moved in next door, a complete knockout. Blonde hair, great rack, her name stared with a 'C'', obviously Lexa's type." She wriggled her eyebrows in Clarke's direction and the blonde blushed almost as deeply as Lexa was. "So Lexa tries to talk to her but Cindy wasn't giving Lexa the time of day, playing hard to get. So Lexa, who was on this 80's movie kick at the time, decides that she is going to strum our father's guitar and serenade Cindy."

"Oh my God!" Octavia says around the same time Lexa puts her head in her hands.

"The thing was, Cindy's room was on the side of the house so Lexa couldn't give her a private concert from the front lawn like in those awful movies of hers and since our houses were close together, Lexa decided it best to climb on the roof, throw a pebble at her window and then serenade her from there."

"Please make it stop," Lexa said to no one in particular. If there was a god, she was sure the omnipresent being was having a good laugh at her expense.

"So she embarrassed herself?" Raven asked as if she knew the answer.

"Oh, hell no. Apparently whatever Lexa was singing to her made the girl eager because the next thing you know, she's flashing Lexa in appreciation."

"How exactly is that embarrassing?" Clarke asked, somewhat amused.

"It wasn't. Thats all that happened," Lexa lied. "End of story."

Anya ignored her. "It's embarrassing because, Lexa - our poor, gay little virgin at the time - was so amazed by them that she slipped and fell off the roof breaking her left arm in three places!"

"She did not!" Raven said, eyes wide with excitement.

"I swear on my mother's life that's what happened. When I ran into the backyard to help her she was laying there in pain holding her arm and when I asked her if she was okay all she said was 'they were perfect, they were just so god damned perfect'." There was a roaring of laughter around the table and Anya looked more than pleased with herself. She was the cat that ate the canary.

"Well at least she got a great view out of it," Clarke said as if trying to comfort Lexa before sliding her hand on Lexa's thigh just underneath the table causing Lexa to freeze, momentarily forgetting all about the fact that everyone was currently laughing at her expense. It was hard to think of much at all besides the running fingers on her leg that were nowhere near as comforting as the blonde had meant for them to be.

"Lex is pretty much used to looking and not touching, aren't you sis?"

"I'm all in," Lexa growled in response, trying not to flinch when Clarke's wandering hand squeezed her thigh.

Anya just pouted at her but her eyes were smiling. "Lexie Pooh, you should know never to make an angry bet." Then she thrust down a pair of kings with a large smile, leaning over the table to grab at the pile but Lexa raised her right hand, flipping her wrist in the air, the motion stopping her sister instantly. She then took her hand and flipped her cards over, the grin instantly falling from her sister's face.

"A straight beats three of a kind and as you are currently now out of chips I believe that you, dear sister, have lost."

"You fucking played me," Anya said in disbelief as she looked at the cards as if they had personally betrayed her. She looked as if she had no idea how she could have missed it. "You re-raise high bets when you have a shit hand and a high chip count! You checked all my bets this hand with your crappy cards!" Then Anya was up out of her seat before storming into the kitchen as she mumbled something about needing something stronger than beer. Raven was on her feet immediately to follow.

"Well that was intense," Octavia said as she shook her head and stood up before leading Lincoln to the living room, Murphy and Emori following.

"I'm going to go find Jasper. Great game, Lexa."

"Thanks, Monty," she called after the boy who was headed to a different part of the apartment. Then Lexa turned to look at the girl beside her and smiled, relieved that she no longer had to force herself to look away from the blonde to concentrate on the game. She was the sole reason Lexa had lost so many hands to begin with. "So do you want to join everyone else in the living room?"

Clarke bit her lip as if trying to muster up the courage for something and Lexa couldn't help but react by placing her hand over the hand still on her thigh and giving it a thoughtful squeeze before entwining their fingers together. It seemed to give the blonde the courage she needed. "I actually wanted to show you something."

Hand in hand, Clarke led Lexa past the three doors that she knew to be bedrooms and the door to the bathroom before leading her to the back of the apartment up a spiral staircase that led into what Lexa assumed was a loft but was really the blonde's makeshift studio. The room was filled with canvas and paint and images that made Lexa stop in her tracks.

There were painting of landscapes that looked so real that Lexa suspected that if she reached her hands forward that she would be touching the pricking leaves of a pine tree. There were paintings of the night sky where stars seemed to shine brighter than the sun and made her feel as if she was the smallest piece of something so incredibly infinite. There were portraits of people whose mouths were smiling but their eyes conveyed so much sadness that it took effort not to reach out and touch the canvas as a means to comfort them.

She had words, so many words but as she opened her mouth no sound escaped as she walked from painting to painting in complete awe of the greatness in front of her. She understood exactly why that gallery wanted to display Clarke's works. She couldn't understand why she hadn't been picked up sooner. If she could, she would have taken everything home and hung them so that not a sliver of the wall behind it could be seen.

It was several paintings in that she stopped at something all too familiar, handwriting that she had seen all of her adult life. Attached to a painting of a faceless girl crumpled onto her knees and screaming into the sky with a tear running down her face was a quarter sheet of paper.

_"She watched as the girl stared down at her own hands and not at the boy who she had loved, who had drawn his last breath. She could hear the people screaming behind her angry and demanding but in that moment she could care less about her people and what they wanted. For once there was only one person filling every thought in her mind. And it was just her luck that the girl likely hated her."_

There were close to ten paintings with sheets of paper attached to them, all of them written in Lexa's elegant scrawl. She couldn't help but reach forward and touch the canvas, to feel the paint in a way that she swore she could feel the words she had written painted in every brush stroke. "You did all of these?" Her voice was quite and completely in awe of her favorite artist.

"The words you wrote were beautiful," Clarke said in a loud whisper.

"Not as beautiful as these paintings. You did my words more justice than I ever have." And there they were. Every strip that hadn't been attached to a painting were all pinned to a cork board on the other side of the room haphazardly, in no particular order. And in the center of it all was the letter Lexa wrote after having talked to Costia on the phone.

"This is the Sky Girl painting," Clarke said with a nervousness in her voice as she led Lexa to the back of the room to a canvas that stood only a few inches shorter than her. "I guess I have you to thank for a lot of these."

Attached to the canvas was the bit of writing she had written about how Alicia was unworthy of Eliza, comparing them to the earth and to the sky. But her words were the least interesting thing about this painting.

The painting done in only blacks and whites and endless shades of gray. The first thing to catch her eye was a black shadow of a woman falling out of the sky. Her body was arched so that she was falling back down towards the ground, her arms and legs pulled skyward. Wavy locks blew up into the sky shrouding the face as what appeared to be a jacket whipped around her as she fell from the sky down to earth.

Just below the falling figure there seemed to be the image of another woman in the shadow of black, kneeling with one knee on the ground as she gazed skyward to the girl falling from the heavens with her arms outstretched as if prepared to catch her. The girl on the ground appeared noble with her hair held up and at the back of her head to keep away from her face which had outlines of a nose, a chin and a jaw that all seemed to silhouette Lexa's features. It made her eyes jump back up to the girl from the sky who seemed to have a body type similar to Clarke's.

Lexa understood immediately what it was that Raven had tried to explain to her about this painting earlier. There was a deep sadness in a way that the Sky Girl appeared to be cast of the sky above, unwanted and easily sacrificed to the earth. But there was a death defying hope of the girl giving praise for the opportunity to catch the girl that fell with so much regality that it seemed unfitting of her to kneel, and yet there she was almost as if proud to do so.

Lexa's heart caught itself in her throat as she felt something wet against her cheeks. It took her a moment to realize what it was. "I can't remember a time where something has moved me to tears." She had meant to think it to herself but the words escaped her lips; it was as if they knew they could not be contained.

"You don't mind that I used your writing, do you?" Clarke sounded nervous and entirely unsure.

"Only as long as you don't mind the fact that I wrote the Sky Girl after you."

It was the first time she said it out loud. Even in her head she fought with the idea that Eliza was more fiction than fact. But standing here in front of what felt like the most honest thing she had ever seen, she couldn't bear the idea of lying to Clarke or to herself. Eliza was Clarke in the same way that Alicia had always been Lexa. Bits and pieces, never completely forming the real thing but never too far off. And every chapter she wrote was just another piece of their love story. The realization made her heart skip a beat.

"You cry over my art and you base a character in what I'm sure will be a famous book after me. My ego is going to become so large that it sucks all the breathable air out of the room."

Lexa laughed as she used the palm of her empty hand to push the lone tear off of her face. "Between you an Anya, none of us will be able to survive."

Clarke scoffed at that and pushed her shoulder into the brunette in retaliation. "You're not supposed to agree with me, you ass!"

Lexa grinned. "Then what am I supposed to do? Continue stroking your ego? Tell you how absolutely stunning you look tonight?" Lexa turned her head to see the blonde flashing a small smile at that while she bit her lower lip and the brunette found that she couldn't remove her eyes from the gesture.

"More stunning than the girl you fell off a roof for?"

Lexa wanted to groan but instead she shook her head reminding herself that she needed to get Anya back for that. "You are definitely more beautiful than Cindy Jones."

Clarke grinned at that but it quickly became sly and the slightest bit naughty. "And how about her rack?"

Lexa could feel the skin of her cheeks warm instantly. "They _were_ pretty spectacular."

The blonde bit her lip with full intent this time and there was this sinister sparkle in her eyes. "More spectacular than mine?"

The question along with the motion that Clarke made towards her chest made it impossible for Lexa not to follow the motion with her eyes. Clarke had been wearing a tank top under an open flannel which seemed to frame her chest perfectly. She had thought about those breasts countless times before. What they would look like hugged in lace and then bare. What they would feel like as she kneaded them in her hands. How they would taste against her tongue. The sounds the blonde would make. Lexa's mouth was suddenly very dry.

Lexa tried to play it cool, trying to think of something Anya would tell her to say. "Well Cindy let me actually see hers so I feel like it would only be fair to her if I compared them equally." She said it with a smug demeanor and Clarke's mouth fell open slightly in disbelief though her eyes smiled as she moved to stand directly in front of the brunette.

"Why, Lex, are you telling me that you want to see my boobs?" Clarke's right hand traced the line of her jaw making it snap shut in tension as her skin hummed beneath those fingers.

"Would you hold it against me if I said yes?" Despite the confidence of her words, her voice seemed to shake against the weight of them.

"Shouldn't you be asking me if I would hold them," Clarke took a glance down at her own chest, "against you if you did?" And to Clarke's credit, her voice didn't falter one bit.

It could have been a multitude of things really. It could have been the amazing art that surrounded them or the fact that so many pieces seemed to be created all from her own writing. It could have been the three beers she had along with the high she experienced from beating her sister at a game of wits. Or maybe it was the fact that it had been eighteen fucking months! But really, it was hard to give credit to anything other that the girl standing in front of her. It was Clarke. It was all Clarke.

Lexa's fingers were swimming in a sea of blonde hair as she pulled Clarke into a searing kiss that left her own toes curling in her boots. And Clarke's response to her was nearly instantaneous as Lexa felt one hand gripping tightly at her waist and the other bundled up in a fist at the front of her shirt. Their bodies collided together in a sparked explosion of passion that cared for neither softness or propriety.

If their first kiss was daylight and sunshine, this one was made completely for the darkness of the night. There was nothing timid or fake about this second kiss. Lips mashed together as teeth nipped at quickly swelling lips and tongues fought for dominance. Moans were mixed with growls that seemed to rise deeply from throats and Lexa couldn't tell which sounds belonged to her. Their hips molded together, pushing and grinding as the heat between Lexa's legs seemed to finally devour her whole.

There was absolutely no concept of time and very little concept of space and the world around them, until Lexa's back crashed into a wall of canvas causing her to gasp in surprise, dislodging her lips from Clarke's. The blonde seemed to take advantage of her momentary freedom and Lexa shivered at the feeling of soft, wet lips traveling down the length of her throat. A nipping of teeth made her hiss slightly just before a tongue seemed to dart out and swirl at the offending bite, making Lexa crave it even more.

She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as every sense in her seemed to heighten. She could smell the air as if it were dripping in sweet lavender. She could feel her skin vibrating against her waist where Clarke's hand had snuck beneath the hem of her shirt. She could taste the lingering remains of beer and strawberry lip gloss against her lips. Her legs felt weak against the feral moaning sound that Clarke was making at her lips wrapped around a spot on the other side of her throat.

When their lips met again Lexa seemed to lose whatever sense of control she had over her desire as she pushed off against the wall only to spin them so that their positions were switched, Clarke now gasping in surprise as her back seemed to rip at the blank canvas behind her. "You're so damn gorgeous," Lexa found herself groaning out as she attacked Clarke's neck with even more vigor than the blonde had. Her neck was smooth and soft and tasted so sweet that it was impossible to not want to take a bite. And it was all made harder as Clarke moaned against the actions, the hands now in Lexa's hair holding her head to the spot where she bit and licked and sucked all without regard for marked skin.

Hands tugged her up as she released the skin with an audible, salacious pop before her lips found Clarke's and once again she was lost. Lexa seemed to have lost all control of her body as her limbs seemed to move of their own accord. Lexa had only noticed that her hands had slid up the blonde's sides, taking her tank top with her when Clarke pulled away from their kiss with a desperate "Lexa!" falling from her tongue.

Her own name seemed to pull her out of this lust induced craze much like a key word spoken by a hypnotist, waking her from a dream. Lexa looked down to see Clarke's flannel shirt pooled on the floor at their feet while her hands held up the artist's shirt high enough to see the hint of a lace, black bra beneath, her smooth stomach completely on display.

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, suddenly overwhelmed by her own actions before taking a large step back to put some space between them. She tried to ignore the way her body instantly protested against the action.

Blue eyes appeared enveloped in a sea of obsidian and Lexa was sure that her green eyes looked the same as their chests heaved with their bodies efforts to supply themselves with oxygen again. The writer's mind raced as she thought about how it was that they had ended up here, how she had practically pounced on the blonde and how she didn't protest in the slightest.

"I'm not," Clarke responded a few seconds later.

"I should have asked first," Lexa said as she shook her head, though her eyes never left the barista's.

"I'm pretty sure I've been offering ever since you kissed me in front of the coffee shop," Clarke said with a smile. The smile only widened when Lexa tilted her head at the comment. "Oh come on, Lex. I don't go around holding hands with any other customers at the shop, do I?"

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks though the brunette was smiling against the blush. "I just figured I tipped really well."

Clarke's laughter sounded like music and it called to Lexa like a siren's song as she dared take a small step closer to where her body so desperately wanted to be. "That must be it," Clarke said with a cheeky smile. "Some guy tipped me five dollars the other day and I had this urge to spoon with him in the back office."

Lexa shot the girl a displeased look at the thought of her with someone else. "So I need to essentially make sure other customers don't tip you then."

Clarke just raised her eyebrow in response before closing the gap between them. "I'm pretty sure that Raven would murder you if you took away her tips," she said at she slung her arms around Lexa's neck, her forearms resting against her shoulders.

Lexa's placed her hands softy against Clarke's waist. "So I'm a dead woman walking?"

"Pretty much. Any last requests before Raven sends you to the world beyond?"

Her heart skipped a beat as she swallowed her lump in her throat. "Maybe just one more kiss?"

Clarke was the first to lean forward and Lexa was quick to follow but just before their lips met a resounding voice vibrated against the walls of their studio sanctuary. "Lexa! It's time to get our asses home!"

Lexa groaned as her forehead leaned against Clarke's. "What would it take to have Raven murder my sister instead?"

There was a teasing tinge in Clarke's voice as she said, "She would do it for free but it's definitely not the kind of murder you would want her doing to your sister."

The thought of it actually made Lexa pull away from Clarke and she was sure a look of horror crossed her features. She had walked in on Anya having sex once when she was twenty-one and that was an image that had never fully escaped her memory. Though usually her mind only brought up that image randomly ever few months, mostly because she was positive that her mind was a complete asshole that wanted to torture her.

"I'd rather not think about Raven doing anything like that to my sister."

"Lex! Get your gay ass down here! It's time to go home!"

"Forget it, I will kill her myself," Lexa growled which only caused the blonde to laugh.

"Which Raven will also kill you for. Why is it that all your plans today result in your death? I don't like it."

Lexa grinned, forgetting for just a moment how much she was ready to kill her sister. "You mean talking about my death isn't as fun for you as it is for me?"

"Not even a little bit."

"LEXA!"

"I guess I better go," Lexa said with a sigh. "But maybe I can get a rain check on that death wish?"

Lexa's eyes closed instinctively as Clarke stood on her toes to place a soft kiss against the writer's cheek. Even those lips in a soft, barely there kiss seemed to send her mind into overdrive. "I look forward to it."

 

* * *

 

Anya was quiet on the walk home which wasn't common for the older woman which is the only reason that Lexa had decided against killing her own flesh and blood this evening, not that her sister hadn't done enough this evening to deserve it.

"Tonight was fun," Lexa tried to offer but Anya just ignored her to start her own conversation.

"I like Raven."

The fact itself wasn't at all surprising. She could see the way her sister stared at her, the way she tried harder than normal around her. What was surprising though was the fact that Anya said it out loud. She was never one to confess feelings beyond some lustful commentary that shielded her from being at all honest about her emotions. And for Anya to just outright make the statement made Lexa stop in her tracks.

"Anya, that's great!"

But her sister just scoffed. "No, it's not. It's a mistake."

"Ahn-"

"No, Lex! I'm just a month out of a relationship. And honestly the girl is smart and sweet and funny and sarcastic as hell but she's too damn young for me."

Lexa rolled her eyes. "So, she's six years younger than you. It isn't that big of a deal-"

"She's practically a child!"

"She's twenty-six. She's not a child. And she's great. Don't just write her off because you're scared."

Anya crossed her arms across her chest and scowled. "I'm not scared and it's definitely a mistake." But then she sighed, "a mistake that I want to make."

Lexa smiled and decided to pull her sister into a hug. If this day didn't define their sisterhood, Lexa wasn't sure what did. She had spent her whole life wanting to murder her sister only to end up holding her close at the end of the day. She loved her sister, of that she had no doubt.

"Plus one of us has to get laid right? There's no way it's going to be you so it might as well be me." Lexa glared at her sister before pulling out of the hug, intent on murdering her again. But before she could say anything in response Anya's eyes grew wide as her hand reached out to pull Lexa's shirt away from her neck. "What the fuck is that? Do you have a hickey on your neck?"

Lexa instantly looked away from her sister in slight horror at being caught with a hickey as if she were still seventeen and making out with Cindy Jones in the hall room closet after she had broken her arm. Something Anya had opened the door to and had teased her about mercilessly for the rest of the summer.

"It's nothing," Lexa tried to say but Anya was having none of it.

"Did I just fucking cockblock you tonight?" When Lexa didn't respond Anya smacked herself in the forehead. "For God's sake, Lexa. Why the hell would you agree to come home with me if you had the hot blonde sucking your neck upstairs? What's wrong with you?"

"You wouldn't stop calling for me!" Lexa hissed as she picked up her pace.

"I'm the worst wingman ever."

"No shit, Sherlock."

But despite it all, Lexa fell asleep with the largest smile on her face.


	5. Fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I am going to stop pretending that I know how many chapters there are going to be in this story. It seems that every time I decide to up the count by 1, I end up doing it again the next week! So now we are up to 7 chapters. 
> 
> Fair warning, I finished writing this chapter pretty late last night (or very early this morning depending on perspective) which means I didn't get a lot of time to proof read the chapter so please forgive any errors!

> So you say you wanna get away  
>  We don't need a plane  
>  We'll be your escape  
>  Take you to a place  
>  Where there is no time, no space  
>  I could be your private island  
>  On a different planet  
>  Anything could happen  
>  Listen to the waves  
>  Let them wash away your pain
> 
> I could be your fantasy  
>  I could be your fantasy
> 
> \- Fantasy by Alina Baraz

There was very little sound beyond the whistling of turned pages and the light scratch of finger tips dragging down paper. Lexa sat with her back stiff, her elbows against her knees as she sat on her sofa chair watching Anya's eyes dart across the latest pages of her book. A chapter that she had spent all day writing, unable to get the image of Clarke's lips out of her mind. Unable to smell anything in the air other than lavender, vanilla and coffee.

That kiss would not escape her mind. It pounded in her head, vibrating through her body, making her fingers itch. She had written the entire chapter on paper, not bothering with her laptop the way she always did when writing more than a page at a time. The look of surprise on her sister's face when she strode into her apartment with her spare key only to be handed hand written words spoke volumes of how little Lexa actually did this.

The past fifteen minutes seemed to pass in agony. She was reminded of how much she hated seeing people reading her works after every chapter written. It wasn't that she didn't want people reading her books, on the contrary she hoped that the people she reached would be boundless, but a feeling of nervousness and inadequacy took hold of her as she watched other people soak in her words. Was the story good? Was it satisfying? Did readers put down the book thinking that the words she wrote were worthy of their time?

The one nice part about Anya reading her chapters right after she wrote them was that after every few paragraphs her sister would say something about words that should be replaced, or sentences that didn't appear as if they belonged. She would question why things were happening, give input if Lexa needed to write those explanations somehow in between sentences. But for the first time ever, paragraphs were read, eyes scanned ink and pages turned without a single word being uttered from her lips.

Watching Anya read in silence was maddening. She needed to do something, to move about, to distract herself somehow. She looked around for a means of escape. There was a large coin on her living room table, she reached out and slowly began to flip the flat object across the back of her fingers.

"Stop that," Anya hissed when Lexa dropped the shiny bit of metal, though her brown eyes didn't once lift from the page. Lexa sighed and pouted like a toddler who had just had their only toy taken away from them as she put the coin back on the table. She sighed again as she hoisted herself up to stare at the books on her bookshelf, reaching automatically for one of the weathered paperbacks on her top shelf.

Her mother had always told her that books of fiction were made to help a person escape reality, to allow them to venture into a different world where they could be different people and momentarily change their lives into a fantasy in which they belonged. Her father had been less whimsical about fiction. He would say that stories were the means for an author to reveal a set of truths to the world, to help others better understand the world around them, to make them amateur psychologists of the human condition.

Her father had passed well before Lexa had made the decision to become a writer, the career path being far from her mind's realm of possibility. It wasn't until a few years after he died that she had found a box of his belongings in the basement of her childhood home and in it, his favorite book _"Of Mice and Men"_. The book was worn and tattered around the edges, the pages soft and thin where her father's thumb would hold the edges of the middle end of the page while he read. Bringing the book to her nose now, it smelled of must, earth and baby powder - the only scents she could now remember of the man.

The book was a short one, the version her father loved was only around one hundred and seven pages long, the books she would write would generally be four times the size. But as she had stared at the book in the basement she recognized for the first time that the book appeared fatter than it did than when she would thumb through a new, unopened copy at her local bookstore. It was as if the pages of his book were somehow thicker. As if they had acquired matter in the presence of someone who had loved it over the years. And that's when it hit her.

She had noticed the phenomena many times before, though the pieces only made sense in her mind as she held up her father's copy of his favorite book. The more and more a person read a book, the thicker and thicker the book would become. She knew that there was a logical explanation for its growth: the folding of pages, the insertion of bookmarks, actual dead skin that likely collected over time. But she liked to think that it was something more than just the physical explanation. In that moment it was suddenly so clear.

When a person read a book, a book they loved, one that they couldn't put down or had to read over and over again, they tended to leave a piece of themselves within the book itself. The pages collected wishes, tears, anger, joy and laugher. It held within it memories of the person reading the book so that when they read it again many years later, they could see how their perspectives had changed, how their world had evolved to allow them to see the words differently. And yet was somehow a means of time travel, back into a wold where they once belonged.

Looking at this book whose cover was close to torn in half reminded her of the way her father used to scrunch up his eyebrows together as he read over a particular part. Or how his thumb would stroke the book neurotically, much like Lennie might have, whenever her mother interrupted him in the middle of his reading as he attempted not to sigh from being torn out of his quiet little fiction laden world.

Lexa wanted that. She wanted to write a book that people would cherish. That people would read over and over again, spilling their own thoughts and memories onto the paper, filling it up and making the book thicker than it was the day they bought it. She wanted to make people feel things, to feel so much emotion that the covers of her books would whither and threaten to tear apart if not held softly. One hundred and seven pages discovered amongst the dust of her mother's basement changed her life.

" _Not yet_?" Anya spoke for the first time since Lexa had gotten up, quoting the most memorable line in the chapter, in Lexa's opinion. There was a look of disbelief and anger across her face that startled Lexa as she pushed her father's copy of _Of Mice and Men_ back onto the shelf. "Not fucking yet!" she practically yelled the second time.

"I don't remember there being any 'fucking' in that chapter," Lexa smirked. She was pleased that her book was able to get such an emotional rise out of her normally stoic sister.

Anya's response was to ignore her sister's retort and to slam down the thirty pages she had written onto the coffee table with a sharp slap. "How could Eliza tell the Commander 'not yet' after she kisses her in the tent like that? God, I want to just shake her and tell her to open her fucking eyes and to take the Commander to bed!"

Lexa just rolled her eyes. "You really need to get laid, Ahn."

Her sister narrowed her eyes at her before shaking her head. "That kiss, Lex. My God that kiss! It's like I could feel Eliza's lips on mine, as if I could taste the minty fruitiness on my tongue. And the fucking sky girl chased her lips so you know that she was just as invested in the kiss. So why the hell would she pull away the moment Alicia moves to change the angle?"

"They're in the middle of a war, waiting for the signal to attack the mountain. A lot is going on in Elyza's mind." Lexa explained, thinking that part of the story was obvious.

"You don't think I realize that? But it's not like you get a kiss like _that_ all the time. That is some soulmate shit you wrote here. Your fans are going to eat this up and forget all about that character you wrote for Costia."

"Cynthia," Lexa answered.

"Exactly, see, I forgot her character already." The look of anger and disbelief on her sister's face slowly turned to horror as her head whipped towards the brunette. "This was your kiss with Clarke, wasn't it? This was the kiss that I dragged your ass away from last night when I made you come home with me, isn't it?" Lexa's lack of response along with the deep red blush of her cheeks made her sister groan. "How do you not hate me right now?"

Lexa just gave her sister a small grin. "I have no idea. I mean there really is just so much to hate."

Normally Anya would wave her the middle finger and tell her to fuck off but this time she just nodded her head in agreement. "I'm the absolute worst there is."

"Enough about you. What about the chapter? What do I need to change before I attach it to the last five chapters to send to Indra?"

"If it were me, I would have the Commander on her knees with her head in between the blonde's legs while she sits on the Commander's throne."

Lexa groaned and brought her hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I'm being serious, Anya."

"So am I," her sister grumbled. "But other than that? I would change nothing. This chapter was absolutely perfect."

Lexa had never heard her sister say anything like that about her work or really anything that nice about her in general in the twenty-eight years she had been alive. She found herself wondering what would change with the world now that hell had frozen over.

 

* * *

 

"Do you need me to give you a pep talk?"

Lexa had been standing at the corner across from the coffee shop, staring at her desired destination and yet unable to get her feet to move. Anya had waited patiently for the crossing sign to signal through once, had rolled her eyes went it passed twice. Apparently the third time was the charm to get the older woman to speak.

"What?" Lexa asked, Anya's words sounding as if they were said underwater as they attempted to cut through her thought induced haze.

"She's just a girl, Lex."

"And Heaven is just a day spa," Lexa growled lowly but Anya snorted, still able to hear her.

"You got this. Just go in there, tell her hi, ask if she wants to go make out in the back and while you're back there ask her if she's on the tasting menu."

It was Lexa's turn to snort but the corner of her lip lifted and she felt something within her shift, allowing her body to move forward as her sister's comment did its job. "If you use shitty pickup lines like that with Raven I'm pretty sure she'll eat you alive."

But the dig just made Anya grin as they reached the other side of the street. "Oh she'll definitely be eating something alright."

Lexa made a gagging motion as she opened the front door of the shop. "That is the last thing I want to hear about."

"Prude."

"Hey there, Dracula. I see you brought in the more attractive Woods sister with you today." Raven grinned from the other side of the counter with an eyebrow raised and this slight come hither look that was made all for Anya who did her best to not give the barista any response. But Lexa could see the way her sister's jaw rolled that she was very much pleased with her greeting.

"You think my sister's Dracula?" Anya asked as if it took her a moment for the nickname to sink in as a sly grin reached her features. Before Lexa could even see her sister move, Anya's hand had reached out and pulled aside the hair around Lexa's shoulders to reveal a deep purple mark at the base of her neck, revealing it to Raven just before Lexa could swat her hand away and roughly shove her sister in response, making her stagger a few feet.

There was a gleaming sparkle in the mechanic's eye, almost as if Anya had just hand delivered her a gift. Clarke's poor timing led her to walk into the room at that moment. "If you want to see a mark, you need to see the number your sister did on my friend, Clarke, here."

Raven reached out as if to swipe at the skin of Clarke's neck, likely to remove whatever concealer the blonde had put on in the morning but the artist ducked away quickly with wide blue eyes, her mind finally parsing together the part of the conversation she had just missed.

Clarke turned to tell off her roommate but the moment she spun her head around blue eyes met green and the world around Lexa seemed to momentarily stop spinning on its axis. She forgot all about the red tinge on her cheeks and the embarrassment of the situation. In that moment she was back in Clarke's studio surrounded by art. She couldn't stop the large smile that her mouth made without any input from her mind. And it seemed that she wasn't the only one because not a split second later, the artist was shooting her a smile that threatened to split her face in two.

"Hi," Lexa said, ignoring Anya's chuckle.

"Hey," Clarke responded back as her left hand lifted to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

"So damn hopeless," Raven sighed though she seemed to smile just as widely as Clarke did when Anya shot her a sly grin.

"So two regulars?" Clarke asked shyly, as if trying to move them all forward.

"Make mine to go," Anya said with a sigh as she lifted up a fat manila envelope. "I'm in charge of dropping off Lexa's pages to the editors this afternoon."

The blonde smiled and Lexa could see her eyeing the envelope with curiosity. "So that's the mysterious book you've been writing, huh? When am I going to be able to finally read one of your works, Lex?"

Lexa's beating heart plummeted into her stomach as she could see Anya shooting her an annoyed look. Her sister had this habit of telling her that keeping her author self a separate part of her everyday self was her own business and yet she still had no problem showing her own displeasure. Though normally that had everything to do with marketing the book and not normally anything involving their social lives.

"You read my stuff all the time," Lexa said but she couldn't quite bring herself to smile.

Clarke merely grinned in response and shook her head. "You know my birthday is coming up next month. I wouldn't mind receiving a couple of those chapters as a gift." Clarke bit her lip and gave her this look that seemed to tear Lexa apart at the seams. It was a look that told her that Clarke wanted the opportunity to devour her in every way possible. Lexa couldn't have stopped herself from replying the way she did.

"I may actually have a whole first draft of the book to give you." She would have cursed herself for her response if the blonde didn't immediately light up at her response before walking around the counter to pull Lexa into a deep hug.

Lexa could feel Clarke's breath, warm as it blew across her neck and all the writer could think about were how the artists lips had felt raking across that very skin. Her eyes closed as her arms instinctively tightened around the blonde, desperate to pull her in closer and Clarke didn't seem to have the slightest bit of objection. Quite the opposite actually. Lexa heard her inhale deeply, the same way that Lexa would have if Anya's hand hadn't snaked it's way against the blonde's neck.

"Holy shit, Lex. What did you do to this poor girl's neck? I thought your hickey was bad!"

The two of them tore apart from one another just in time to see Clarke blush a deep red against her cheeks, a dark purple mark glaring like a beacon against her alabaster skin. Lexa may have felt embarrassed if she wasn't so impressed with her work. She was never the kind of girl who particularly enjoyed marking her lovers but seeing that love bite against the artist's neck made this feeling well up inside of her. It was a feeling of primal possessiveness. She liked the idea of the blonde being hers and she reactively reached up to trace the purple mark on her own neck. She liked the idea of belonging to Clarke even more.

"So was yours a curling iron accident too?" Raven asked with a chuckle, breaking Lexa out of her gawking.

"You tried to sell that thing as a curling iron accident?" Lexa asked Clarke, her own ego feeling slightly bruised at the insinuation.

Clarke just threw her a teasing grin. "I was trying to protect the public image of your virtue."

Anya snorted. "You were protecting my sister's honor? Lex, does that make you feel guilty for writing that hot make out scene instead of being chivalrous?"

"A hot make out scene?" Raven asked with a wide, teasing smile.

"You have no idea," Anya said as she pretended to fan herself before turning to Clarke and winking. "You must be one hell of a kisser, blondie."

The blonde smirked and shot Lexa a look filled with nothing that spoke of good intentions. The brunette found herself rubbing her thighs together as discretely as possible. "Your sister hasn't seen anything yet."

Lexa was sure that she would have been blushing had all the heat in her body not instantly decided to congregate between her legs and it took everything in her not to groan at the thought of Clarke's mouth walking its way slowly down her body against bare skin. Her throat was dry when she said, "I'm more of a doer than a seer anyway."

Clarke rolled her eyes but there was a large grin on her face. "Let me get your coffee started for you."

"Mine too?" Anya asked sarcastically.

The barista laughed. "Yeah, yours too."

"Thanks, Van Helsing."

 

* * *

 

She wished she knew how she got here. Not for any reasons that would get her to avoid this situation in the future but rather because she so desperately wanted to find herself in this position over and over again with her palm flat against Clarke's bare stomach beneath her shirt as her other gripped tightly against the arm rest of the couch right above blonde curls in Arkadia's back office.

Three days of endless flirting and touches that seemed to reach far beyond friendly had Lexa's mind spinning out of control. Her thoughts were consumed with blonde hair, blue eyes and endless images of paint stained handprints running all along her body. She had no idea that was even a thing that she would have been into but rainbow colored paints against the color of her skin was quickly becoming her favorite kink.

The day had started with Anya gripping on tightly to her shoulders and physically shaking her after realizing that Lexa hadn't been listening to what she had been saying the past fifteen minutes, though the dreamy look on her face should have really tipped her off that first minute in. "If you don't ask her out today, I swear _I'll_ sleep with her just so someone gets to enjoy the visions obviously running in your head right now!" Which ended with a hard thawp upside her head for good measure.

The trip into the coffee shop started with Raven completely ignoring the look of purpose in Lexa's eyes as she asked "Carmilla" if she was ready for her usual. The barista was running through her long list of pop culture vampires claiming that she had to get in as many as possible until the mark on Clarke's neck fully wore off.

The journey into the back room started by Lexa completely ignoring the raven haired girl at the counter before turning to look at Clarke with a gaze of steely determination as her heart pounded erratically in her chest and her hands shook in slight fear as she asked Clarke if they could speak alone for a moment. Clarke hadn't said a word before motioning her head to the back of the store though Lexa could see the way her jaw clenched and rolled while Raven catcalled behind them.

Everything beyond that point was just a blur. The door had barely clicked shut behind them when Lexa felt a rough pull against her tshirt as soft lips collided hungrily against her own. She could remember a gasp as her back hit the door and Lexa somehow had the wherewithal to tease the blonde that she seemed to have a thing with pushing girls against walls. Clarke had responded by heavily rolling her hips into Lexa's and the brunette could barely notice the feeling of her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

Something clicked inside the writer who had spent the last year and a half not having sex with other people and she felt powerless to stop it. A growl resounded deep within her chest and all she could think, all she could breathe in, all she could feel was Clarke, Clarke, Clarke. She hardly registered the fact that her body bent just enough so that she could reach the apex of the back of the blonde's thighs before hoisting the artist up so that the blonde gasped in surprise as she found her legs wrapped around the brunette's waist.

The girl's gasp seemed to replay itself over and over in her mind up until she mewled at Lexa walking them both over to the couch before softly depositing the goddess upon it, her body following. Which was how she found herself laying on top of the blonde, with her fingers slowly rising up the skin of the blonde's torso and her left hand holding her up just enough to not put all her weight against the artist as their lips seemed to never break apart for more than ten seconds at a time.

Being with Costia was a nice, warm hum. It was a soft melody played against the backdrop of a serene forest where Lexa felt comfortable and safe. That wasn't what this was at all. Being with Clarke, that was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It wasn't warm so much as if felt as if a wild fire was blazing through her, scorching every inch of skin, leaving no piece of untouched earth behind. It was a loud and steady roar that made everything else around her disappear. It was the furthest thing she could feel from safe and comfortable but as Clarke's teeth pulled at her bottom lip, comfort and safety were the last things she ever wanted for her heart again.

It was the feeling of ice upon her neck that seemed to wake Lexa from her lust addled state, though it wasn't so much ice as it was the silver watch on Clarke's wrist as nails raked against the back of her scalp causing her to shiver. It was then that she noticed Clarke's other hand trying to guide Lexa's a little higher and the blood in her body seemed to freeze just long enough to get her to pull her lips away from the blonde long enough to gasp.

"Wait, wait, wait," she panted causing closed eyes to shoot open instantly and flood Lexa's senses with a sea of blue.

"What's wrong?" the blonde asked, her body instantly freezing beneath Lexa's as she tried to sort out what it was that she had done.

"I didn't ask you to bring me back here so that I could feel you up in your boss's office."

"Oh," was all Clarke said while a look of hurt flashed behind her blue eyes. She seemed to squirm beneath Lexa as a means to extricate herself from the situation she found herself in before Lexa registered that the girl beneath her had thought her words to be a rejection.

"Oh, God, no, Clarke," she said, trying to hold the blonde in place. "Trust me when I say that there is literally nothing else I want to do right now that _this_." She motioned her hand between their bodies, not really having a better explanation as to what it was that they were doing.

The artist stopped moving. "So this isn't you telling me that you don't want _this_?" she used the same tone and the same gesture between them that Lexa had.

Lexa shook her head. "Do you know how many times I have pictured this exact moment in my head?" She hadn't meant to say something so honest but the feeling of Clarke beneath her made it extremely hard for her to filter much of anything at this point.

"How many?" Clarke asked with a suddenly confident grin and a single raised brow that threatened to reignite the flame that Lexa was trying very hard to contain.

"I'm not even sure if the hot water is working in my building since I've had to take cold showers every morning for the last month." Again, far more honest than she would have normally been but the answer seemed to please the girl beneath her who was now breaking into a full on smile. Lexa found herself staring at those lips.

"So you want this and I most definitely want this. Explain to me why it is that you are telling me to wait when you could so easily have a handful of my chest in your palms right now."

Lexa's eyes drifted down to the space between them, her hands only one inch away from glory. Her fingers itched to touch but instead she opened her mouth and practically shouted as a means to ignore her libido "I want to buy you dinner." Lexa groaned immediately, the hand in Clarke's shirt escaping the blonde's shirt so that she could smack herself in the head for her complete lack of smoothness.

Lexa had to give the blonde credit for tamping down on her laugher as much as she could, but even her self control couldn't keep her body from shaking in amusement. "You realize that I am literally just below you, right?"

"Would you go on a date with me?" Lexa tried again at a much more acceptable volume.

The blonde smirked but there was an excited twinkle in her eyes. "How about tonight?"

"Tonight sounds great," Lexa said with a smile. She leaned down for another kiss, though she planned for this one to be much more reserved. But she stopped about an inch away, a worrying thought suddenly filling her head.

"Now what?" the blonde said somewhat impatiently.

"Do you think maybe you can tell Anya that I didn't just do that?"

Clarke snorted. "The part where you picked me up and took me to the couch, which was totally hot by the way," Lexa grinned. "Or the part where yelped at me to go out to dinner with you?" Her annoyance had returned to amusement and Lexa pouted.

"Definitely the part where I turned into the biggest dork ever and was unable to ask you to dinner like a normal human being."

"You're hardly a normal human being, Lex."

"Clarke!" It came out in a pleading groan.

"You might have to do something that would make me forget that happened." That sparkle in her eyes returned and Lexa found herself smiling despite her embarrassment before leaning back down to press her lips back against Clarke's.

She had tried to keep the kiss casual, she really did. She had every intention of one chaste kiss before pulling away but Lexa wasn't sure how one just walked away from everything that was Clarke Griffin. And one chaste kiss turned into several chaste kisses, to longer kisses into the flick of tongues and the biting of bottom lips until Lexa yelped for a second time that afternoon as hands grabbed firmly at her ass.

Clarke's wandering hands seemed to give her permission and the feeling of lace and soft flesh against her palms and fingers caused a groan to fill the room, who let out that groan Lexa wasn't sure. She had imagined touching this chest countless times over the past three months and her imagination just couldn't at all compare to the real thing.

She was positive that it was Clarke's groan that filled the space around them the second time as she kneaded with her right hand with more determination, desperate to take in as much as she could. If she died now, in this moment, she didn't think she could die any happier. "We should slow down," Lexa found herself muttering against bruised lips though her hands seemed to pay her no mind as the blonde's lace bra scratched itself over her palm.

"We should. Definitely," Clarke agreed with a quiet moan but her hand just gripped onto Lexa's over her shirt in a grip that encouraged the brunette to keep going.

"I should take you on that date first."

"You should." The hand Clarke still had on her ass pulled her hips down firmly against Clarke's. The fire was roaring and threatening to spin out of control.

"Clarke," Lexa gasped. She liked the way her tongue swirled around the name and clicked at the 'k'.

The blonde seemed to shiver below her. "Lex," she let out breathlessly. Her name moaned from those lips sounded better than anything she had ever heard.

"Clarke?" said a booming voice behind them?

"Dad?" Clarke yelped in response.

There wasn't a word in the english language, or in any language, that could have gotten Lexa to leap up and off the blonde to the other side of the room faster than the word Clarke had screeched below her.

At the base of the now open door was a man with his hand frozen on the doorknob and his eyes wide in slight horror, likely due to watching his daughter being defiled at her place of work by some strange girl he didn't know. Or at least that is what Lexa assumed. The man was of tall stature, lean but not particularly thin. Sandy hair fell at a soft arch against his forehead just above bright blue eyes, a less stunning version than his daughter's, though Lexa could have been biased.

However, this wasn't what was going through her mind. What was going though her mind was that the father of the girl of her dreams had just caught a show of her copping a feel with her hand fully under his daughter's shirt. What was going through her mind was that while she was normally great with parents, there was surely no coming back from this.

"Hey, Dad," the blonde said again but this time she sounded more embarrassed than distressed as she walked across the room to give the man a large hug. His eyes never seemed to leave Lexa during the exchange of pleasantries. "What brings you by?"

"I was in the area and wanted to see if you were free for dinner tonight. Raven told me you were in Marcus' office but she didn't tell me you had company." He said the last word with a hint of curiosity as he seemed to look over the brunette as if trying to figure her out. Lexa just looked away from his gaze, content to look at anything else. The dust bunny in the corner of the room seemed interesting.

"Raven," Clarke cursed before glaring to the side of the room as if she could see through the wall towards the front of the shop where she was sure her roommate was standing, probably laughing her ass off.

"What is she getting you back for this time?" he asked with a small laugh, seeming to forget all about the mystery girl in the room with them. Lexa shifted on her feet suddenly wishing she could turn invisible and just walk straight out the room.

"It wasn't me," Clarke said incredulously as she shook her head before motioning to the girl who was idolizing Susan Storm for the first time in her life, "Lexa beat her in poker the last two group nights and she's been itching for retribution."

"I didn't cheat!" Lexa cried out, in that moment forgetting all about the precarious situation she was in.

"So this is Lexa!"

Lexa cleared her throat. Clarke's dad had heard of her before. The red tinge now sporting the blonde's cheeks told her exactly who had mentioned her to the man before. Lexa straighten her back and raised her chin putting on an air of confidence that she didn't quite have at the moment before reaching her hand out. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Griffin."

Clarke's father looked at her hand for a moment as if letting her sweat out his decision, which she was, before he gave in and gripped her hand tightly, which she returned much to his amusement. "It's Jake," he said with a look that said he was holding back a smile. "Normally I would say that it was nice to meet you but you did happen to be trying to round second base with my daughter a few minutes ago."

"Dad!" She could see Clarke giving her father a horrified look which only made it look like Jake was trying even harder now not to smile.

"I apologize, Mr. Griffin. I swear that this is not something I normally do."

Jake crossed his arms over his chest and looked Lexa up and down while Clarke pinched the bridge of her nose. "You mean you don't normally try and steal bases, Champ?"

"I'm a horrible baseball player."

"I don't believe that for a second," Jake said finally cracking a grin before flashing an actual smile at Clarke. "I see what you mean about her."

"I know, right?" Clarke said with a devious look in her eyes. The inside conversation was completely lost to the brunette but there was no way in hell that she was going to ask what it was they were talking about. She would prefer to just escape this conversation completely.

"Perhaps I should leave you two to talk?"

"No," Jake said, "I can't stay long." He turned his attention back to Clarke. "So what about it, kiddo? Your mother doesn't come back home from her conference until tomorrow and your old man would love to try that Italian place; the one you've been telling me about."

Lexa watched as Clarke looked from her father, then to Lexa then back to Jake again. "Actually, I just made plans."

"We can do dinner another night, Clarke." The last thing Lexa wanted to do was postpone their first date but she saw an opening to try and get in on Jake's good graces and she would be damned if she didn't take it. Clarke didn't seem too pleased about her cancelling either.

"Well, shoot," Jake said as he rubbed his chin, a motion made more sinister by the cunning smile in his eyes. "If Lexa is suddenly free tonight then maybe she should join us for some delicious Italian food."

"Dad!" The blonde's hiss between clenched teeth did nothing to hinder his actions any.

"How about it, Lexa? Would you like to join us tonight?"

Lexa tried to think of one good excuse that would get her out of having dinner with Jake Griffin. It wasn't that she didn't like the man, on the contrary, he seemed exceptionally cool for someone who had just walked in on what he had. But Lexa didn't want to fuck it up. She wanted to impress the man and four hours was not an adequate amount of time to compose herself or to make herself impressive. "I wouldn't want to impede on your dinner plans."

"How about you say yes and I don't tell my wife how it is we met? You know, with you getting handsy with my daughter in our friend's office."

"Dinner sounds wonderful."

"Fantastic!"

"I'm going to fucking kill, Raven." Jake just shot his daughter a toothy grin. Lexa on the other hand couldn't agree more with Clarke. Raven's days were numbered.

 

* * *

 

"Only you would leave on a mission to ask a girl out on a date and end up instead planning to have a dinner with her parents."

"Just one of her parents," Lexa called out from her bedroom with a sigh as she finished buttoning up her black top before walking out into the living room to see her sister with her boots up on her coffee table, smirking at the glare the brunette was giving her.

"That's one too many parents. And why do you think you need to dress up to have dinner with him in an outfit you would go to a job interview in? Did no one teach you how to dress?" Anya threw her feet off the table and stormed into Lexa's room with an exasperated sigh. "I swear you would be lost without me."

"This isn't like poker night," Lexa called out in chase. "I don't want Clarke's dad thinking that I don't care about his opinion of me and that I'm not trying."

"You don't think I realize that, dummy?" Lexa reached up to catch the sweater that her sister threw in her direction followed by a nice, dark pair of jeans. "Casual but nice and conservative. Something that doesn't scream 'your daughter calls me daddy, too'. Though is there really any unseeing you defiling blondie?"

"That isn't making me feel any better. You do realize that right?" Lexa flopped herself down onto the bed with a groan before letting her head fall back onto the mattress.

The bed sunk in the space beside her as her sister plopped down right beside her. It was comforting, almost. "Do you remember what happened when I met Nia's parents?"

"You mean how you accidentally bumped into the table and dropped her mother's Thanksgiving turkey onto the floor after she had spent half the day working on?"

"Yup," Anya said, popping the 'p' with her lips, "that's the one."

"What about it?" Lexa asked under the false hope that her sister was telling her this to make her feel better somehow.

"Well you always seemed to be most parents' wet dream so I just figured that I would forever have a worse 'meet the parents' story than you. Who knew that you would one day have a meeting that would be worse than mine?"

"Fuck you, you asshole."

She didn't have to look at Anya to know that she was grinning manically from ear to ear. "I love you too, Lexie Pooh."

 

* * *

 

Back when her father alive, family dinners at restaurants were normally quiet affairs. Lexa and Anya had been raised on the premise that children were meant to be seen and not heard. They kept quiet and spoke when they were spoken to. She couldn't even count the amount of time random strangers walked up to their table when they were kids to tell her parents how well behaved their children were and her dad would beam with pride.

Lexa used to look across at tables that were loud and rambunctious and all she could see as a child was a complete lack of discipline. She always assumed that she would have kids one day and that she would get compliments on how well behaved her own kids were and that she would feel a burning pride the way her dad did. But it wasn't long into dinner that Lexa realized that this fantasy might not ever be true if she ended up with Clarke for the rest of her days. And she was pleasantly surprised that the idea of that thrilled her to no end.

It was odd and it was different but it was contagious and Lexa didn't mind at all catching the bug. Clarke and her father weren't rudely loud or disruptive but they never tempered their laughs at the table and it seemed that both were content on spending their entire dinner laughing at one thing or another. Despite the nerves that had plagued her only an hour before, she couldn't help the smiles that fell onto her lips or the laughter that spilled from them. Lexa wouldn't have traded her childhood for the world but she was suddenly envious of those loud dinning room families from her childhood.

"So there I was," Jake explained as his hands moved about the air, enthusiastic about his gestures, "in the elementary school principle's office finding out that my little girl, my little princess, has been beating up the school bully for picking on her friends."

"So Clarke is more badass than she lets on?" Lexa asked with a small laugh and Jake's smile grew while he looked to his daughter who was just shaking her head as if lost in the memory of it all.

"What do you mean? You think I'm not a badass?" Clarke asked in feigned shock as she held her hand over her heart like the writer's words had wounded her. "I'll have you know, that bully was almost twice my size!"

Lexa grinned, trying to imagine a four foot tall, blonde haired girl jumping onto the back of some boy a few inches taller than her, crying for her to get off of him. "So what did you do?" she asked Jake.

The man scoffed. "I did what any good, respectable parent would do. I told her how her actions were wrong in front of the principle before I gave her a high five and some ice cream afterwards and told her how proud I was of her for sticking up for her friends. Then we both agreed that we would never tell Abby."

That last part made Clarke grin even wider. "And my mom never did find out until two years ago at a Christmas party where Raven got drunk and spilled the beans about that one time in forth grade that I was suspended for a day for fighting."

"Raven," Jake cursed, the exact same way that Clarke had earlier in the day.

Lexa just laughed shaking her head. "My dad would have really liked you." And it was true. She didn't have to spend more than five minutes with the man at the other side of the table from her to realize that he was the type of man her father would have respected, maybe even joined him for a few drinks.

Jake gave her a warm smile. "Clarke tells me that your dad used to serve for our country." And that was the other thing, the man listened even better than he told stories. Maybe it had to do with how easy he was to talk to but Lexa found herself being more open and talkative and she didn't at all miss the way that Clarke would smile brightly at her every time she learned something new about her.

It had felt like only ten minutes had passed but when Clarke excused herself to go to the restroom Lexa looked down at her watch to see that over two hours had passed. It shouldn't have been surprising because what had remained of their vanilla ice cream at the table had long since turned into dessert soup.

"So, Lex," Jake said as he watched his daughter walk out of earshot and for the first time since she had sat down, Lexa finally felt as if she had a reason to be nervous. "I know you and Clarke are pretty new and you're just starting out but my daughter is very important to me. She's possibly the best thing I've ever done with my life so it would be extremely irresponsible of me to not ask. And even though I have a pretty good idea based on what I walked in on this afternoon," both of them shuddered slightly from the memory, "what are your intentions with my daughter?"

Lexa tensed for a moment, sorting through all of the textbook answers she had given her exes' fathers in the past. She had a mirage of things she could easily say that would likely satisfy the engineer's question and yet when she opened her mouth, she couldn't bring herself to use a single one of her cookie cutter answers. It felt dishonest and the kind hearted man who seemed to have welcomed her with open arms deserved more than that.

"Honestly, Mr. Griffin?"

"Jake," he quickly corrected her for what was likely the tenth time that evening.

"Jake," it still felt odd to say. "I wish I could tell you what the future has in store for us or that I knew that I would never do anything to hurt your daughter, but I can't. But I do know that I care for Clarke very much, and how could I not? She's smart, she's funny and she's talented beyond belief. I mean, you know, you've seen her paintings!"

Jake smiled and puffed out his chest slightly with a look of pride in his eyes that reminded Lexa very much of her father, she missed him terribly. "Abby may not be happy with her career choices, but Clarke's doing what she loves and she's great at it."

"And she's brave for doing that, for choosing what she loves!" Lexa said, though the look that Jake gave her told her that she was preaching to the choir. "I very much enjoy being around your daughter. And when I'm not with her, she's all I think about. She texts me and I can't stop the goofy smile that just takes over my face. My sister makes fun of me constantly and even that just makes me grin wider.

"And what you saw earlier? I swear that's not me. I respect Clarke and she isn't just some notch on a bed post, or some object to be had. She makes me happy, she makes me feel this hope that I thought I lost a long time ago. And all I want is to make her happy." Lexa let out a long breath, aware that she had just stupidly given a long winded speech but before she could regret it Jake gave her a big smile and patted her hand that was on the table encouragingly.

"Well good. Just as long as that remains true, you're alright by me. However, you need to remember, if you ever do hurt Clarke badly, my wife is an amazing surgeon and she has the knowledge and skill to murder you and dismember you so that the cops will never find you."

Lexa gulped, not doubting his threat for a moment. "Well if it ever does come to that please be sure to reach out to my sister and tell her to tell Clarke about Raven's poker tell. If I'm not around to beat Reyes then someone else has to be."

Jake laughed, successfully cutting away the tension in the room and setting the atmosphere back into a nice, comfortable hum just in time for Clarke to return. "What did I miss?"

Jake shrugged. "Lexa tells me that you're all that she thinks about when she's not with you."

Clarke, who had went to take a drink of water choked as she inhaled the liquid in surprise, clearly not expecting that answer. Neither had Lexa who was sure she was blushing to a level just beyond being cute.

"And Jake offered your mother's service of dismembering my body parts," Lexa replied in the same tone that Jake had used.

"Dad! Honestly?"

Jake gave her a sheepish grin. "Well Lexa started talking about notched in bed posts-"

"Lexa! Really?"

It was Lexa's turn to give a sheepish grin. "Clarke, your dad has this way where he just has you spilling your guts without any filter."

Clarke groaned, but there was a playfulness about it and she was fighting the smile from her face. "That's it, you two aren't allowed to hang out anymore."

"Well now I just want to hang out with Lexa more."

Lexa threw Clarke a wink before she could stop herself. She wasn't the type of girl that winked, though maybe she was now, maybe Clarke had turned her into this. "Jake, I know this pretty decent coffee shop near my house if you want to hang out there and grab a coffee. They have this pretty cool barista there who makes a pretty okay coffee."

"A pretty okay coffee?" Clarke asked with a huff. "I'm going to make Raven start making your coffee from now on!"

She said it with a serious tone that had Lexa reaching over the table to grab at Clarke's hand in slight horror. She loved Raven, really, but she didn't trust her not do something to that coffee when she wasn't looking. "What I meant to say was that the barista makes the best coffee that I've ever had, life changing even."

"That's more like it," Clarke claimed as she interlaced their fingers together and the tenderness of it made Lexa's heart beat a little faster, it made a warmth swarm around her body, the fire burning but somehow contained. She looked from their entwined hands to meet blue eyes that seemed to radiate pure joy.

Lexa's heart felt tight in her chest. She felt a little bit like she was falling into the abyss, head most definitely over heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully all of you enjoyed the chapter. 
> 
> I want to let you know that I won't be posting next Sunday since I'll be out of town all weekend for my friend's 30th birthday. I plan to post chapter 6 the Sunday after that (November 14). I apologize for the long wait and if I can post sooner I will. 
> 
> Also, I really want to thank everyone for the comments that you leave me on here. They really help inspire me to write when I'm stuck with ideas, or when I'm running low on energy. Thanks guys!


	6. Howling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry for having to skip the chapter last weekend. If it's any consolation, my liver wasn't very pleased with my either. But it's not often that my friend turns 30 and it's almost just as rare that I have a weekend out in Las Vegas. Hopefully this chapter will make up for it. For those of you who were looking for smut, it has finally arrived! A shout out to my girl Callie for helping me out with that one. It's at the end of the chapter for those of you who aren't a fan. Also, the song of this chapter has been my obsession for the last couple weeks. 
> 
> Let me know what you guys think. Enjoy!

> Golden siren  
>  Under expose me  
>  Come lay your weakness down  
>  On the floor in the backseat
> 
> Gold I fell into your spell  
>  On the rite of God we fell  
>  You were plush and I laid bare  
>  You had me howling  
>  Cold I fell into your skin  
>  On the night you led me  
>  Under your sin  
>  You had me howling  
>  You had me howling
> 
> **Howling by RY X**

 

"I had a really great time."

"Me too, though I'm sorry that my dad invited himself to our date."

The night had ended far better than Lexa could have imagined. Jake had made up some excuse about why he had to leave and insisted that Lexa walk Clarke to her door since he couldn't. There was no missing the unsubtle wink that he threw in Lexa's direction or the tinge of red that filled Clarke's cheeks.

"It wasn't a date," Lexa said with a grin. "I refuse to tell people that our first date was with your dad especially after he paid for the tab."

Clarke laughed while she shook her head. "It really was a valiant try when you tried to slip the waitress your credit card only for my dad to slap it out of your hand."

"I swear I am much faster than that normally," Lexa said with a smile as both girls stopped right in front of the blonde's apartment door.

"Fast? You?" the artist asked with a raised brow and a twinkle in her eye. "I'm not sure that's a word I would use to describe you."

Lexa scoffed and gave the blonde an offended look. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"What I mean is that it's taken you a long time to make a move on me, Woods."

Lexa couldn't help herself as her gaze fell to Clarke's lips. "I'm not sure your father would agree with that statement."

She loved the way Clarke's mouth spread into a smile as she laughed and she found herself wanting to taste the noise that fell from her lips. "No, I suppose not." Clarke looked up and down the hallway as if trying to make sure that no one else could hear what she was about to say. "You know, Octavia and Lincoln are on a date night and Raven said she had a date down at the bar."

Lexa could feel her mouth get dry as she peeled her eyes away from Clarke's lips to watch blue eyes looking her up and down as if trying to commit this version of her to memory. The low top that Clarke wore to dinner had been seared into Lexa's mind within seconds of meeting the blonde for dinner, though it didn't stop her from stealing looks when she knew she wouldn't be caught. She was much less careful with her gaze now.

"So you have the apartment all to yourself?" She tried to sound nonchalant but the knowing grin the artist gave her told her just how unsuccessful she was.

"Yup," the blonde said as she popped the 'p' and the brunette was back to staring at those lips.

It was hard to ignore the way her heart was racing with that information or the way her hands suddenly felt a little clammy or the way her mind raced with thoughts of Clarke moaning naked beneath her. "Well if you wanted to have some company..."

She let the sentence taper off into the abyss. As much as she wanted to come inside, she couldn't ignore her father's voice in her head telling her that it was never proper to invite yourself into someone else's home, that they needed to be the one to extend the offer. And she didn't want to pressure Clarke into making the offer.

Lexa received a response in terms of lips passionately pressing against her own in a move that said that she had no interest in wasting her mouth's usefulness with words. The brunette responded in kind by pushing Clarke up against the door and pushing her body fully up against hers as if trying to meld them together.

Hands danced across skin and gripped at clothing and breaths mixed in a symphony of panting and moans. There was no control to be had, it seemed, when she was just so close to Clarke. There was no thought and she operated purely in instinct and desire in that moment when Clarke spun around to fumble with her keys at the door and Lexa held onto Clarke's hips to pull her ass into her groin. Clarke gasped in response and her hand froze as if unable to compute what it was she was trying to do.

The back of Clarke's neck where it met her shoulders tasted even better than it smelled, sweet almost as if that vanilla scent was a byproduct of her presence. She was eager to find out what the rest of Clarke tasted like, her chest, her stomach, her thighs, _her_. It was this eagerness that seemed to push her past her haze as she reached out to grab Clarke's hand holding the keys to help her open the door.

Their lips connected in a searing kiss the moment they were inside the apartment, never once leaving each other as Clarke backed them through the apartment. Lexa's jacket fell to a heap on the floor in the middle of the hallway. Clarke's fell in the entry way to the kitchen. They were leaving a telling trail of clothing behind without any thought or care.

Lexa's mind raced and yet was unable to keep up with the pounding of her heart. It had been too long, way too damn long and the only thought that filled her head was of how much she wanted this. No, how much she _needed_ this.

They were close, only a couple dozen feet away from Clarke's bedroom door and Lexa wasn't sure they would make it that far. Her luck, however, was no better tonight that it was hours ago because before she could find out a yelp from the kitchen made Clarke and Lexa freeze and whip their heads around towards the kitchen and the sound that had pulled them out of their desire induced fog.

The sight of the intruders had Lexa's libido quickly retreating to the farthest corners of her mind. It wasn't necessarily the girl that had made the sound that had Lexa staring in horror. In fact a shirtless Raven Reyes really would have been a sight to behold if it wasn't attached to legs that were wrapped around all too familiar hips and arms gripping tightly onto a bare, toned back. Raven Reyes pants-less on top of the kitchen table also may not have been an unwelcome sight except that Lexa swore she could see the hand buried beneath her legs.

"Raven?!" Clarke squeaked.

"Clarke?" Raven asked back with a horrified tone and red cheeks. But Lexa couldn't hear either girl.

"What the fuck, Anya?" Lexa couldn't tear her eyes away from her sister's back, relieved at least that this time she hadn't walked into a room with her sister bare assed like the last time. Anya in response pushed herself further into the mechanic who let out an unexpected moan while Anya attempted to cover up the girl's body with her own.

"We eat on that table!" Clarke said, ignoring Lexa just as much as Lexa had ignored her.

"Do you guys mind?" Anya growled in response to the two girls who had yet to leave the kitchen despite what they had just walked in on.

"Yeah, I mind!" Lexa scowled. "Could you maybe try and remove your hand from Raven's," Lexa's hands motioned animatedly in the air as she tried to think of a nonsexual word for the area where Anya's hand was buried, " _there_!"

"Actually," Anya said in a tone that said she didn't give a single flying fuck about what Clarke and Lexa thought, "I need at least five more minutes now that you've interrupted us. So if you could either leave or just shut the hell up, that would be great."

"Don't you dare!" Lexa growled.

"Oh God," Raven yelped not a second later as Anya's hand jerked forward and Lexa looked away in disgust.

"Okay then, you two have fun," Clarke called out as she dragged Lexa out of the room.

"Thanks, Buffy!" Anya called out.

It was official. Lexa hated her sister.

 

* * *

 

"You've got to tell her, you know that right?"

There is a moment, right before a crash where the mood is serene almost, where nothing feels like it could go wrong and the only thing worth thinking about is how _right_ everything seems to be. And then all it takes is one moment for everything to come crashing down. A body in a constant flowing motion is violently brought to a screeching halt. Limbs whip through the air, the breath is forced out of lungs and everything is turned on its head so that no matter which direction you turn, it always seems as if there is no finding which side is up.

Lexa was in that moment just before Anya entered into her bathroom and leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed and a look of uncertainty in her eyes. Lexa was finishing off the last flick of eyeliner for her first official date with Clarke when her sister's voice carried through the small room, emotionally thrusting her into the world unknown. Her good mood, her great mood, turned sour and all it took were those first five words.

"I know," Lexa grit through her teeth. It's not like she hadn't thought that same thing before. It was a phrase set on repeat and there was no escaping it. But she thought, she hoped, that for this one night she could forget all about what she did for a living and just be Lexa. Lexa, whose father talked to her about chivalry in response to Lexa telling him that she was gay. Lexa, whose stomach was filled with butterflies at the mere thought of showing up on a girl's doorstep. Lexa who was equal parts charming and disaster whenever a pretty girl was involved. Lexa. Not Alexandria Woodson. Not an author worth anything more than a few words on paper. Not this girl who felt as if she was keeping this big secret for reasons that felt more and more unknown to her as the days passed.

"Do you though?" Anya asked with a softness that Lexa couldn't bring herself to hear over her own insecurities.

"What do you want from me, Anya?" Lexa put down the pencil to grip tightly to the porcelain rim of her bathroom sink, her knuckles turning the shade of the sink itself as she tried to keep her voice calm.

But her unwavering voice did nothing to fool the woman that had known her all her life, well enough to know when she was barely holding it together, well enough to know when her sister was about to project her own feelings. Lexa could see Anya's jaw clench defensively through the bathroom mirror.

"I don't want anything from you."

"And yet here you are telling me something I already know." Lexa couldn't stop the bite in her tone or the way the muscles in her shoulders bristled down through her forearms. She wasn't mad at her sister so much as she was upset with herself but her body didn't seem to differentiate those feelings well at this moment in time.

"Maybe I'm just trying to figure out why the hell you haven't told her already."

Anya was good at many things but beating around the bush was definitely not one of them. She never seemed to feel the need to ease into a tough subject, she didn't see the necessity of it. Ripping off the bandaid was always better than the alternative. And while Lexa's emotions were layered and complex, much like an onion that needed to have its layers slowly pealed away, her sister was much better suited with a large knife and a swift slice down the middle.

Lexa sighed but it did nothing to remove the strain from her shoulders. "I'm going to tell her, I'm just waiting for the right time."

Anya scoffed. "You mean like when she finally reads your book and reads all of the passages you tell me are hanging on her studio walls?"

"No, of course not." Though Lexa would be lying if she said that she hadn't thought about doing just that. "I told her that I would let her read my story for her birthday." The more hours that passed through the days, the more and more she regretted making that promise.

But Anya shook her head. "No, you promised her a manuscript and you haven't written a single word of your book since that promise over a week ago. You have four, maybe five chapters left to finish up the first draft and you've spent the last week looking at your laptop as if it were the devil himself looking to collect on some owed debt."

Green eyes that had been looking at the girl in the doorway quickly turned away to focus on something less daunting, something less honest. She watched as a droplet of water fell from the faucet and swore she could feel the drop pounding onto the chasm inside her chest. Her heart felt heavy and strained as she attempted to pull in a deep breath of air but the pressure just began to feel unbearable.

It's not that she didn't want to write. The ideas filled her head and painted her images just as vivid as the paintings in Clarke's studio. But the thought of writing something, the thought of Alicia and Elyza's march to the mountain made her feel sick. The truth was that she was knew which ending she wanted to write, she knew how the Commander would finally take down the mountain with a lever in hand and Elyza's hand on her shoulder trying to ease the pain of her decisions. And yet Lexa couldn't bring herself to write it. She couldn't bring herself to end this story. To end their story.

"What if I tell her and it's too late? What if I've lied to her for too long and she doesn't want to be with me?" The questions fell from her lips and a slight weight lifted from her shoulders. She couldn't stop the rest of the insecurities that followed. There was a break in the damn and no amount of finger fixes were going to fix the dyke in the wall.

"What if she can't see me as anything other than Alexandria Woodson and she starts treating me like everyone in Indra's office does? Or what if she realizes that being with me means that I can't help but write about our lives for all to read? What if we sleep together and she realizes that I really am nothing more than just some celebrity on a list? What if her finding out changes our dynamic and this amazing thing we've had the last few months just crumbles and falls apart?"

Lexa hadn't realized that her sister had moved until she felt a slightly squeezing pressure on her head from where Anya held her cheeks in her hands, trying to coax her down from the minor anxiety attack that had taken control of her mind. Anya tried to shush her down. "Lex, calm down. Look at me."

"What if this changes us? Hell, I don't even know what it was that changed Costia and me. And this is something big, something tangible. This could change us, couldn't it?" She was shaking and she could feel her sister trying to hold her still. "What if I fucked this up, Ahn? What if I killed us before we had a chance to become an _us_?"

"Whoa, Lex. Just calm down. Take a breath." The breath in through her nose was shaky and the breath out through her mouth came with multiple shaky exhales. She couldn't understand what the hell was happening to her, why her body was reacting this way. She tried to pinpoint the pieces as Anya breathed in and out with her, trying to control their rhythm and slow it down. It had been months of holding in these questions, of holding in this secret. And just saying it out loud triggered this massive shift in her. Oh God, what if she ruined this?

Lexa spoke again only after her breathing had returned to normally a few moments later and her voice came out as a defeated whisper. "I've been lying to her."

She could feel Anya's arms around her before she could piece together that she had been brought into a hug. "Hey, none of that tonight. Look, you don't have to tell her tonight. I'm sorry for bringing this up right before you left for your big date. Everything will be fine. Clarke is a really cool kid and she may get a little upset when she finds out, but she's crazy about you."

"What if it's not enough? Hell, I _loved_ Costia and that wasn't enough even after all the years we spent together."

"Fuck Costia," Anya said with a growl. "She wasn't good enough for you, she never was."

"Maybe I should cancel the date tonight." Her heart plummeted into her stomach at the suggestion.

"No way," the hand holding onto her shoulder tightened. "Look, just forget all about this tonight, okay? Tomorrow you and I will sit down and we will think about the best way to tell Clarke and to move forward." She could see Anya trying to analyze the emotion behind her eyes. "Okay?" she asked when she saw uncertainty.

"Okay," Lexa said with a nod. She could do this. She could forget all about Alexandria Woodson tonight and tomorrow she would figure out just how to tell Clarke exactly who she was.

 

* * *

 

Dinner had most certainly been a good idea. A long walk through the park afterwards with Clarke's hand in hers had _most definitely_ been a good idea. But the movie afterwards? That had to have been the most horrible idea that Lexa could have come up with.

It wasn't that it was a bad date idea. Lexa took Clarke to the movie she had been raving about for weeks that had just come out and the squeal Clarke let out when she saw their tickets was enough to tell her that she had made the right decision. It was how she found herself utterly helpless in a dark room surrounded by strangers with Clarke's hand playing with her inner thigh that made her realize that this had been a bad plan.

The evening had gone even better than the not-so-date that they had with Clarke's dad. There was a nervousness along with a heavily built sexual tension that seemed to sit beneath the surface of their words and their actions but at the same time Lexa felt as if she had never been more excited or enraptured. Conversation floated between the two of them with so much ease that they may as well have been back at their little corner in the coffee shop.

Lexa couldn't count the number of smiles that had been shared between them, the number of laughs, how many times she had reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind Clarke's ear which just led to even more smiles. She found herself lost numerous times in their quick stolen kisses and how they held hands every moment that they could. She couldn't remember a single date that she had ever been on before that made her feel quite like how Clarke made her feel.

So of course Lexa thought nothing of it as they threw up the arm rest and Lexa slung her arm around Clarke's shoulders, allowing the blonde to cuddle up into her side. The scent of lavender and vanilla against the lingering popcorn smell wasn't as off putting as she believed it could be and was instead something she was enjoying. But just as the lights dimmed down and the preview's began, the artists skillful hands fell to rest on her thigh instantly causing a spark to radiate up the inside of the brunette's legs.

"Hey," Clarke whispered over the previews of some action thriller coming out soon.

"Yeah?" Lexa asked, relieved that her voice didn't squeak in a high pitch.

"You live pretty close to here right?"

It took Lexa a moment to gather up her thoughts as the hand against her thigh moved. "Uh yeah, pretty close."

The girl beside her hummed and snuggled closer. "I always wondered where exactly it was you lived."

The words were flying out of Lexa's mouth without a second thought. "We can head up to my place after the movie." Her heart was racing and a shot of nervousness draped over her like a warm blanket in triple digit heat. It wasn't as if she hadn't thought about inviting Clarke back to her place. She did, after all, spent the entire morning cleaning her apartment just in case. But it suddenly became real.

"I'd really like that," Clarke offer as she shot the brunette a teasing smile equipped fully with a bottom lip being drawn beneath teeth.

Lexa spent the next two hours unable to focus on a single line said throughout the entire movie. All she could think about was how often she wanted to lean down and kiss the girl beside her, how nervous she was about what it might mean to take her home and how long it had been since she'd had sex. Was she still any good? Had things changed in the sex scene over the last year and a half? What was it that Clarke liked?

By the time the lights had come on and people began to shuffle from their seats, Lexa couldn't tell you the title of the movie they had just watched let alone a single plot point.

 

* * *

 

The walk up to Lexa's apartment had been very different from the walk up to Clarke's several days prior. The laughter and banter that had taken place throughout the evening was still there, though the thought of what could transpire next seemed to weigh heavily on the minds of both women. Though as Lexa got to her front door, neither made a move to rush into anything.

Lexa didn't feel at all rushed, as if she were eager to get Clarke inside and get this awkward part, that was created by excited waiting, over with. There were no friends, no siblings, no customers around to interrupt them. On the other side of the door it would be Clarke and Lexa and just Clarke and Lexa, the only distractions being the ones that they created. It was thrilling and she wasn't going to waste a second of it trying to rush ahead. A quick kiss was shared before Lexa turned the door knob, neither girl pushing for more just yet.

"So this is it," Lexa said a little breathless as she led Clarke through the door, stopping to watch the blonde walk around the living room and trace the edge of her couch with a lone finger that Lexa couldn't quite keep her eyes off of.

"This is a really great apartment, Lex. It's really just you in this place?" Clarke's neck was craned slightly to take in her rather high ceilings.

"Yeah," Lexa answered as she undid the top button of her shirt so that she could breathe a little easier. She had imagined Clarke being in this apartment countless times before but to actually see her there made Lexa's fingers itch. "Anya lives across the hall."

"So it's like having a roommate but with much better privacy?" Clarke looked a little wistful at the idea.

"I generally don't find myself walking in on my sister knuckle deep into your friend when I come home," Lexa joked though she couldn't contain the cringe she made at the very thought of it. She still couldn't fully look her sister in the eye yet. There were just some things a girl was never meant to see.

Clarke laughed as if amused by the discomfort that the brunette had put herself in. "Back in college it was usually Octavia that I would walk in on. Raven used to be the one to complain that shared spaces weren't meant for private affairs. I guess your sister must be persuasive."

The statement just made Lexa cringe more which had apparently been the artist's intent as she was laughing fully now at the girl who was curling up her nose. "Can we maybe not talk about the Kitchen Counter Horror of 2017?"

"It has a name now?" The amusement sparkled behind blue eyes and Lexa found herself quite pleased with her ability to entertain. It quickly evaporated the uneasiness of the topic they had just been discussing.

"Yes! My sister needs to be shamed by this fiasco in the future."

But Clarke just shook her head doubtful. "Yeah, your sister didn't at all stop because we were there and when they were done several minutes later, the look of smugness on her face at your horrified look tells me just how unashamed she actually was."

Lexa just shook her head, unable to admit defeat. "Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even a year from now, but someday we will bring up this story and it will get to her. It just has to!"

Her steely determination had her missing the happy smile that fell onto the artist's lips as she walked over to Lexa to place her forearms onto Lexa's shoulders. "So you see us together in a year from now?"

Lexa froze at the question, replaying what she had said and what it was the blonde had heard. She had to swallow down the lump in her throat. Did she see herself together with Clarke in a year from now? Hell, how was she supposed to explain to Clarke that she hadn't had a single thought about her future in the last few months that didn't involve the blonde somehow. And it wasn't as if that had been by design. She just seemed unable to imagine the thought of Clarke not being there. But that was something that wasn't supposed to be said on a first date, was it?

"I think I insinuated it would be over a year from now that we would be shaming my sister." It was all Lexa could think to say in response, and it was apparently the right answer because Clarke was beaming from ear to ear. But as Clarke leaned forward to bring Lexa into a kiss, the writer panicked.

"Would you like something to drink?" She asked quickly and in a single breath right before Clarke's lips could reach hers. She pulled away with a curious look in those blue eyes as she studied Lexa's face. "Some beer maybe? Or some wine?"

It took a moment of Clarke looking at her before one side of her lips pulled up into a small smirk, understanding what Lexa's nervousness was. "How about a water?" Lexa could have kissed her for being so understanding but instead she offered Clarke the most assuring smile she could before turning and walking away to the kitchen.

She stood in front of her fridge with the door open wide for a few moments longer than necessary, the cold air nipping at her nose while she took a calm and steadying breath. She could do this, she could most definitely do this. It was like riding a bike, right? A very sexy, responsive and wonderful bike. Plus she could stop at any time. Clarke would never push her further than the was ready. Though the aching between her legs was screaming at her that she was most definitely ready. She had never been so nervous about sex before, if that was where this was going. Okay, so maybe her first time was more nerve wracking than this.

She shuddered. She could do this. She just needed to be open and honest about it all. She took one last long breath before grabbing two water bottles and closing the door to the frigid box but when she returned to her living room, she found it empty. For a moment a feeling of dread washed over her like an overbearing tide, threatening to wash her away.

Had Clarke just left without a single word? Did she see the fear on Lexa's face and suddenly realize that this wasn't what she wanted? Did she run off because something happened? No, surely she would have told her. Unless of course she was the issue. Lexa could feel her breathing quicken but before it could turn into a full blown panic, she heard a shuffling sound coming from her office.

The panic of Clarke leaving was quickly replaced with another kind of panic. All she could hear was Anya teasing her about her office, or what she now referred to as Lexa's "collection of a stalker". She contemplated being the one to run away from her apartment but her feet carried her forward despite her mind's protests.

Clarke stood in her office, in front of shelves filled with cups, cups with Clarke's elegant scrawl, her drawings. The artist had her fingers wrapped around one of the white cups, studying the drawing. The cup had a detailed girl that looked very similar to Lexa, wearing medieval armor that looked as if it had been made for royalty. The girl looked as if she were falling forward, about to plummet onto her knees. It made Lexa originally want to reach out for her except for the look in the girl's eyes. Her eyes told her that the fall was necessary, like something inevitable or prophecy fulfilling.

It was the drawing that started all of this for Lexa, the drawing that began her fall into infatuation, possibly something more. It was the first drawn on cup that Clarke had ever given her on the second day that she had entered the coffee shop and was given a wink and a piece of paper to write on which would hold up to ink much better.

Lexa opened her mouth to say something, to offer up an explanation, to give any apology but words refused to fall from her lips. Instead she watched as Clarke thumbed over the face of the drawn up girl. "You kept them?" Clarke's voice was a bit raw which gave her husky tone a heart squeezing timber.

Lexa swallowed the lump in her throat and chose to be honest. "Every single one." She said it with a confidence she didn't have, a conviction that was unwavering, and as unapologetic as she could possibly be. "Whenever I need the extra inspiration to write I will look at these cups and try and see what you saw in my words and then I will think of you and after that, well, how could I not be inspired?"

With a gentle ease, almost as if she were handling something precious, Clarke placed the cup back onto it's rightful spot on the shelf. When she turned to look at Lexa her blue eyes shined almost as if she were holding back a floodgate with them. "I used to wonder what it would be like to walk into a place and see my artwork on display somewhere that wasn't my home or my family's home. Even in my wildest dreams, I didn't know it would feel this good."

The shake in her voice had Lexa walking across the room as she reached up to thumb away a lone tear that had fallen past the blonde's defenses. Her heart swelled when the blonde leaned her cheek further into her hand. "You don't think I'm weird for all of this?" she asked as she gestured towards the wall.

Clarke gave her a confused smile. "Why would I think you're weird for enjoying my art enough to want to keep it?"

Lexa gave a shy shrug. "Anya said it was creepy."

The tenderness in Clarke's eyes gave way to amusement as she laughed deeply. "Your sister is kind of an ass."

It was Lexa's turn to laugh as her hand slid down to cup Clarke's neck, unwilling to let go of the girl in front of her. "Right? Do you think maybe you could tell her that? Maybe it will mean something more coming from someone other than me!"

Clarke just shook her head in amusement before she reached up to hold onto the wrist of the hand on her neck. Her thumb stroking against the back of her hand had Lexa finally aware of how close they were to one another. It would be so very easy to just lean in and take those lips into hers.

"Maybe tomorrow," Clarke said as her eyes drifted down to Lexa's lips and the writer swallowed hard. "Right now there is something else I'd rather be doing."

"Don't you mean 'someone'?" Lexa asked as a joke but her voice didn't hold the conviction necessary to pull it off as she leaned in a little closer.

"You're sister is not the only ass," Clarke retorted.

"You like my ass," Lexa said with a small smile, closing the distance even more.

"You're right," Clarke said and she sounded as if she had been holding her breath, "I do."

Their kiss started off slow and strong and passionate. Their bodies pressed together, both pushing to get closer even when the space no longer existed. They both wanted more, they needed more. It was a sharp stab that did it, teeth latching onto Lexa's lower lip and pulling that seemed to wake her body up. The groan from deep in her throat sounded primal and dangerous and Clarke's whimpered response sealed it all in as Lexa seemed to lose control.

She was vaguely aware of the fact that she had grabbed a hold of Clarke's hips to pull them right against hers as she thrust her own hips forward, desperate and wanting. Clarke released their kiss with a surprised gasp leaving an exposed neck that Lexa could not help but capture with her lips, her tongue, her teeth. She could feel blunt nails digging into her back after she bit down, both girls hissing slightly but neither put off, if anything it seemed to make it all the more urgent.

"Bedroom!" Clarke nearly groaned and Lexa couldn't help but push the blonde back out through the door. But Lexa knew, they both knew, that Lexa wasn't in charge here. She wasn't pushing so much as Clarke was leading her. She growled at the circumstance of it but it just seemed to give the blonde more power as she pushed against Lexa's shirt, demanding and Lexa couldn't help but start unbuttoning it.

They each peeled off their own clothing. Shirts slid down arms and were yanked over head. Bras were unsnapped and discarded somewhere in the hallway. Buttons were undone and zippers quickly pulled while each tried awkwardly to jump out of their shoes. Lexa stumbled slightly as she yanked her jeans down her legs, unwilling to let go of their kiss and Clarke reached out to steady her.

It was happening fast and her movements seemed to be spurred on by instinct alone. A trail of clothing was scattered between her office and her room and Lexa couldn't quite remember how they got there, just that they were here in her room and she wanted Clarke. God, did she want Clarke. Clarke. Clarke. Her mind could think of nothing else. Her body craved it beyond anything it had ever wanted. She didn't know if she had pushed Clarke back onto the bed or if it was Clarke who pulled Lexa onto the bed with her. All she knew was that Clarke was laid bare beneath her with Lexa's thigh between her legs and as the skin of their body touched, Lexa gasped and the world came crashing back down.

It was as if time stopped in that moment and she was reminded that this wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want to rush this experience. She wanted to take her time, to commit this moment to memory, one that she could remember over and over again. So she forced herself to stop, and to lift her body up to just take in the girl in front of her.

Her skin seemed to glow in the dim lighting of her room. She was all curves in the most delicious of ways, her body like uneven terrain that required years to attempt to master and yet she likely never would in her lifetime. Her breasts were full with pert nipples that demanded attention all on their own, to be worshiped and celebrated and enjoyed. Her stomach was smooth and soft but firm and led to a small patch of blonde, just darker than the hair on her head. She could feel the wetness on her thigh as she looked up into blue eyes that appeared almost black, so much so that she could almost see herself in them.

All her life, Lexa had had this ability to put her emotions into words. Long before she became a writer she has this ability to digest her emotions and put a name to them, to form a sentence with a string of words that explained exactly how it was she felt. But for the first time in her life, Lexa couldn't think of a single word that could explain what it was that she was feeling.

Happy? Joyous? Thrilled? Sure, but there wasn't nearly enough in those words to adequately describe what this was.

Excited? Absolutely, but it was so much more than that.

Lucky? She certainly was, but this was all more than just luck.

Scared? Definitely, but even that word fell flat to the gambit of emotions filling her body, her mind, her soul.

For the first time in her life, Lexa Woods could not put a single word to the emotions, to the thoughts raging inside of her. She half wondered if this is what it would feel like to finally meet her maker. To be brought into a world filled with a blinding light as she fell to her knees, unable to comprehend anything else around her.

"Hey," a voice and a soft hand atop her cheek pulled Lexa back down as her eyes fluttered open to see concerned blue irises looking right at her. "Where are you?"

Lexa took one deep, shaky breath as if she had been lost and finally realized that she had been found. "I'm right here." She watched as eyebrows pulled together and she could see Clarke trying to figure out whether or not she needed to pull away. "You're beautiful," Lexa offered quickly, pulling Clarke back her.

The hand on her cheek slid into her hair, massaging the scalp. "You are absolutely stunning, Lex."

Lexa nodded as she looked down at her thigh, aware again of the arousal coating her skin, a biting cool against the heat of the area beneath it. "I haven't done this in awhile," Lexa confessed as her thoughts from the theater came forcefully to the front of her mind. "I don't know what you like."

"I like this," Clarke said as she lifted her head up to capture Lexa's mouth in a long, slow kiss that made Lexa's toes curl. But even when they pulled away, the uncertainty still sat in Lexa's chest and she was sure that Clarke could see it in her eyes. "We can stop."

Lexa quickly shook her head. "No, I don't want to stop. I want this, I want you, I just-" her voice trailed of, unable to form the words.

An understanding filled Clarke's eyes as the blonde nodded and reached up to pull Lexa down for another kiss. Her left hand caught Lexa's as she slowly slid both of their hands down over Clarke's body, between her breasts, down the plane of her stomach, through a patch of hair until both girls gasped out of their kiss and a warmth coated Lexa's fingers.

She moved her fingers up and down slowly, letting her fingers explore the smooth skin as Clarke's breath hitched and her chest expanded. She let her fingers move with the quickness of Clarke's breath, with the volume of her moans. She watched, mesmerized as Clarke's eyes squeezed shut and she cursed the moment Lexa bushed against the pulsating bundle of nerves.

Lexa's own arousal wasn't lost on her, she could feel the wetness pooling between her legs as her body ground down against air as if begging for release. But her own needs were pushed to the back of her mind as she watched the girl below her unravel.

"Oh God," Clarke cried as Lexa slowly pushed into her with one finger and Lexa groaned at the feeling of being squeezed and pulled in. When a second finger followed the first it was as if a spark had been lit and the blonde was vibrating and Lexa could feel it in her very soul.

This. This right here was where Lexa was meant to be. It was as if the fragments of her life had suddenly come together like pieces of a puzzle, as if she was incomplete and now she was whole. And again Lexa was at a loss for words but it no longer bothered her. Maybe there was just no way to explain Clarke, maybe she was so much more than what could be understood. All Lexa knew was that this was where she belonged.

"Fuck, right there, Lex!" Clarke's hips bucked, trying to match the brunette's rhythm. The writer's forearm burned slightly as she curled her fingers forward again, desperate to please Clarke, to show her what her words failed to express. She pushed her thigh behind her hand and moved her body a little harder, a little faster and then the blonde's back was arching into the air, rigid and taut. A quiet scream filled the room and Lexa leaned down to kiss her, to swallow that moan whole.

She didn't stop moving until the artist collapsed below her, slowing her movements as her body twitched and shook in the aftermath. Lexa fell with her head buried in the soft flesh of Clarke's chest and she could hear the fluttering of the girl's heart in her ear. She swore it was beating at the same pace and rhythm as her own.

"That was..." Lexa looked up to see Clarke with an arm draped over her eyes and a smile on her face and hear heart swelled.

"It was good?" Lexa asked with a shy smile before placing a soft kiss against Clarke's chest.

The blonde snorted in disbelief. "Good? Lex, the coffee I make is good. This? I'm not really sure that there's a word to how fucking fantastic this was." Lexa couldn't keep the grin off her face as she kissed her way up to the lips of the girl eager to receive her.

"If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one at a loss for words," she said as she pulled away.

"I have _you_ at a loss for words?" Clarke asked with a raised eyebrow and a cocky grin. When Lexa nodded the blonde smiled wider and the next thing Lexa knew she was being flipped onto her back with a surprised gasp.

It was otherworldly watching Clarke make her way slowly down Lexa's body, kissing every inch of skin that she could touch. Her skin burned where her tongue traced and every inch of her felt as if it were being consumed by fire. By the time a warm mouth enveloped her, Lexa was gripping tightly to the sheets beside her and she felt herself getting dizzy.

It was the feeling of Clarke's hand reaching out and entwining their fingers together that allowed her to let out the breath that she had no idea she had been holding, or for how long she had been holding it. The dizziness was replaced by this feeling of euphoria as she groaned and moaned and gasped and howled at the things that girl's tongue was capable of.

She could feel it in the hand squeezing hers. She could feel it in the vigor in which Clarke consumed her. She could feel it in the vibrating moan against her clit that toppled Lexa over the edge. She wasn't the only one who felt as if she belonged here. Some part of her knew that Clarke felt exactly the same way.

Two hours, several orgasms and countless kisses later Lexa found herself on her side, holding a curled up Clarke against her front as her arm draped around the blonde with a hand firmly placed on her amazing chest. She fell asleep to the sound of Clarke's breathing and she knew she never wanted to sleep without this girl in her arms ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as I rule, I try not to get too political with my posts because all of us have rights to our own opinions. That said, if someone asks me about something or they make some claim that I don't agree with, I am the first person to speak up. That said, I felt like I should say something about all of the concerns and fears that I've heard over the past week.
> 
> It has been a very rough week for a lot of us. The results of the election had me slack jawed. I almost couldn't believe what had happened. For what I'm sure is a majority of us, we lost the election and we are angry but that alone doesn't stop the fact that Trump is now our President elect. We may have lost the election but that also doesn't negate the fact that we are all still here. Now more than ever we need to speak out against injustices when we can and we need to stand together and stay strong. Countless men and women have fought for our rights in more hostile environments than this and it's out turn to carry that torch for equality and for freedom. Our fight is not over and none of us are alone in this. Take care of your friends and family and allow them to take care of you. Despite the results I still believe that love is so much stronger than hate, you just can't let that hate or anger or fear consume you. I love you all.
> 
> Jen


	7. Nicest Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry this chapter was so late getting out. I really wanted to fit all of this into 7 chapters but as I have quite a bit more to write I didn't really want to leave you guys waiting another week so I decided to split the last chapter up into two smaller chapters, though they both will be over 5,000 words long so it's not that short, just not as long as the other chapters. But hopefully this will hold y'all over until the next update in a week!

> I wish you had a favorite beauty spot  
>  That you loved secretly  
>  Cause it was on a hidden bit  
>  That nobody else could see  
>  Basically, I wish that you loved me  
>  I wish that you needed me  
>  I wish that you knew when I said two sugars,  
>  Actually I meant three
> 
> I wish that without me your heart would break  
>  I wish that without me you'd be spending the rest of your nights awake  
>  I wish that without me you couldn't eat  
>  I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep
> 
> \- Nicest Thing by Kate Nash

There was something to be said about habit and routine, something that always made Lexa feel safe and at peace. It's why she preferred nights alone over the past year and a half to one night stands and why her mornings never felt empty or uncomfortable. And yet, as her eyes fluttered against the soft ray of light crashing through her window, she realized that this was the furthest thing from habit and routine. Feeling safe and at peace was vastly overrated.

It took her a long moment to realize that she really was in her bedroom and that this was most definitely not a dream. Her chest and legs seemed to burn against the heat of being pushed into the bare skin of the blonde's back in front of her. Strands of sunlit hair tickled against her lips and found themselves pasted against her cheek while others whisked around the air as they danced against her breath. She couldn't feel her left arm buried beneath soft pillows weighted by her companion's head and neck though her hand seemed to tingle with the feeling of pins and needles against the cool morning air. What she could feel was her right hand whose arm was draped over a curvy waist and whose palm pressed itself against soft skin that pebbled into a stiff peak between her index and middle finger.

Last night Lexa had felt this overwhelming sense of belonging that settled deep into her morning as she attempted to pull herself further into the artist in front of her. She took a deep breath, ignoring the way that strands tickled her nose to take in the lingering scent of lavender and vanilla and the evidence of the night before. It was the unintentional nuzzling into the back of Clarke's neck that filled the room around them with noise.

The sound of Clarke groaning away the sleep from her throat vibrated through Lexa's very core and her body shivered against it causing the fingers on her hand to tighten slightly into the flesh against it, which just caused the blonde to gasp as she got her bearings.

"Good morning," Lexa said before dipping her head down to kiss the bare skin of Clarke's shoulder, smiling to herself at the slight hint of salt against her tongue.

There was a shifting of weight that allowed Lexa to remove her left arm from beneath the blonde as she adjusted herself so that she was laying on her back as she stared up at the brunette. Lexa in turn refused to remove her happy right hand from its current resting place. "Hey," she said in a deep husky voice that was now Lexa's favorite.

"Did you sleep well?" Lexa asked, not really sure of what to say while at the same time concerned for Clarke's well being. But the blonde just hummed her response with a smile before leaning up to take Lexa's lips against her own.

The kiss was warm and slow and sweet as if neither girl wanted to leave from their respective spots. "I'm surprised your hand stayed there the entire night," Clarke said with a sly grin as she pulled away from the kiss.

Lexa couldn't help but grin as she looked down at the hand against Clarke's chest. "Are you kidding? I don't think my hand has ever had such a comfortable resting place. I think you're going to have to pry it away."

The blonde just rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Is that so?"

Lexa nodded and answered in the most serious tone that she could muster, "your rack is definitely nicer than Cindy Jones'."

Clarke raised an eyebrow as she glared in her direction. "Are you seriously thinking about one of your exes while I lay here naked in your bed?"

Lexa just shrugged. "Maybe I was just laying here trying to figure out how the hell I was able to write about beauty before I met you when clearly it took my meeting you to finally see it."

"You're quite the charmer, you know that?" Clarke chuckled out in response.

"I've been told that I have a way with words," the brunette supplied cheekily.

There was an overwhelming mischief within the blonde's blue eyes that made Lexa's legs clench together as a reflex and she could feel the heat gathering. "Well you definitely have a way with that mouth of yours."

Lexa could feel the a red tinge forming against her cheeks. "Just my mouth?"

Clarke's lips lifted into a smile that matched the look in her eyes as she reached up to play with the fingers on her chest and Lexa couldn't help but stare. "I'm sure there are a few other skilled parts of you but you might have to show me again to remind me."

Lexa buried her head into Clarke's hair so that she could kiss a line against the blonde's neck, though it was mostly done in an attempt to hide the warmth in her cheeks at the suggestion. As she began to nibble at her ear, Lexa could feel the girl beneath her arcing into her chest. "Would you prefer my hands or my mouth?" She spoke with a confidence she had to grasp for.

Clarke hummed before turning her head to capture Lexa's lips in a passionate kiss and the brunette was flung back into the memory of the night before and her body shuddered. Clarke Griffin was the closest thing Lexa had ever gotten to being addicted to a drug with the way her body seemed to crave her so deeply.

"I want all of you." Lexa could feel Clarke's whispered words against her lips before nodding and kissing her way down to the spot across where her hand had made itself a home. There was absolutely no part of her that wished at all for her safe and habitual morning routine.

 

* * *

 

 

Lexa left a sleeping artist in her bed an hour and a half later as she lifted her hands above her head, smiling at the soreness of her own body which served as proof of both last night and of this morning's activities. A part of her still could not believe that any of this was actually happening to her but if this was some delusion of her own making, there was no way she would allow herself to return to reality.

She spent the next half an hour busying herself with mixing up pancake batter and trying to read the instructions on how to work the fancy coffee machine that Anya had bought her as a welcome gift after she had moved into her new apartment and began raving about how much she loved the coffee down the street from her. The truth was that Lexa really wasn't lying that first evening in the coffee shop, she really wasn't much of a coffee person. She was more of a tea girl who only ever had her coffee made by the blonde in the other room.

"Something smells really good," the voice accompanied a yawn as two soft hands snaked their way around her waist.

"Do you normally sleep this much?" Lexa teased as she flipped another pancake into the air.

"No, but I will if it means that I get pancakes and bacon in the morning." Lexa could feel the grin forming through the thin shirt on her back.

"And coffee," Lexa added proudly before glaring at the confusing machine at the other end of the counter.

"Thank God!" Clarke moaned before taking off to grab the cup that Lexa had prepared for her. But her sense of accomplishment was short lived as not a second later there was a splattering of coffee in the sink where Clarke had projected it from her mouth as her arm came up to wipe the liquid away from her face. "What is this?"

Lexa frowned as she looked down as the liquid sloshing around Clarke's cup. "The coffee isn't good?"

Clarke laughed in disbelief as she shook her head. "No, babe, I think the word I would use is 'atrocious'."

Lexa might have frowned if it hadn't been for the word 'babe' that seemed to fall effortlessly from the blonde's lips. Though she did feign a look of displeasure at the comment. "The instructions said that it was supposed to make the best coffee I've ever tasted."

Clarke just grinned as she reached over and placed a reassuring hand on Lexa's forearm. "Why don't you let me take care of the coffee?"

Lexa merely nodded before the blonde was off opening cupboards and looking for random things in Lexa's pantry. The writer could have asked what it was the girl was looking for but she was rather enjoying the sight of Clarke being comfortable enough in her kitchen to look around for whatever she needed as if this place were her own home.

In the end Lexa had made the right decision in allowing Clarke to dump the coffee she made down the sink. Lexa had watched diligently and couldn't really figure out what Clarke had done differently than she had when brewing both cups but it somehow came out exponentially better than the writer's had.

"It has to be black magic, I tell you." Lexa said as she took another sip even though her stomach complained that it couldn't take another drop after all of the pancakes she had consumed.

"Just face it, Lex. I have superior coffee making skills that would take you many years to master." Clarke grinned at her before forcing down another forkful of maple syrup drenched pancakes.

Lexa scoffed. "Many years? Clarke you've only been a barista for a year and a half."

Clarke just grinned wider. "That's how bad your coffee is. You would literally need years just to overcome the horribleness that was that cup of joe."

Lexa gripped her chest as if completely offended. "I'll have you know I can make a damn good cup of tea," she crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to feel like a petulant child.

"Do I look British to you?"

"More people drink tea than just people living in England, Clarke. In fact, next to water it is the most consumed beverage in the world."

Clarke's eyes seemed to twinkle in amusement, "whatever you say, Your Majesty."

Lexa opened her mouth to protest a bit more when a ringing pierced the air, nearly making her jump. If she were being honest she would have admitted that even though she was just talking about it, she had forgotten that the world still existed around them. The world outside could have been crumbling apart and she wouldn't have noticed a thing other than her and Clarke in this very room. Her phone really was an unwanted pull back to reality.

Lexa was fully prepared to tell her sister to fuck off but her back straightened as she saw the name on the screen. "Hello Indra."

_"Hi, Lexa. I was just about to send over your signatures to the lawyers to look over and it looks like one of the pages is missing a signature. I need you to come down here to sign it."_

Lexa groaned as she took a glance towards the blonde sitting across from her looking absolutely delectable in one of her flannel shirts. "Is there any way that you can send someone over to my place with he documents for me to sign?" The thought of leaving this apartment was becoming more and more unbearable.

There was a long, poignant pause over the line and Lexa could almost feel herself cringe. She had known the woman for all of her life. Indra was always straight and to the point. Even when Lexa was a child, her father's friend talked to her as if she were an adult with her own opinion and she always expected a great deal of respect in return.

_"Lexa, I understand that it's a Saturday and that you are likely busy."_ That was code for telling her that while it was Saturday, it was obvious she was in the office spending her weekend trying to get Lexa's affairs in order. _"But there are other things that I need to get done today and it would mean a great deal if I didn't have to sit around waiting for messengers to go back and forth for a document that will take you less than one minute to sign."_. Which meant that if Lexa was just sitting at home that she needed to get down there now.

Lexa shot Clarke and apologetic look. "I'll be there in half an hour." No more words were exchanged before Lexa hung up her phone with a sigh.

"Your publisher?" Clarke asked with an excited smile that almost made Lexa cringe.

"Yeah, I just need to sign something." Clarke moved to get up and Lexa could feel her heart clench in her chest. "You should stay," Lexa shot out eagerly. "I will be back in an hour and you can lounge around the apartment, take a shower, thumb through some books, sketch, just make yourself feel at home."

"You are cool with me just hanging out alone in your apartment?"

"Of course!" Lexa said without a second thought. She didn't want this moment, this date, to end and if that meant pausing it for an hour then she would do whatever was necessary. "And Octavia had been talking about this sidewalk chalk art event thing that I was hoping we could maybe go to this afternoon." She paused to see the smirk forming on the artist's lips, "that is if you're free of course."

"So you're not sick of me yet?" Clarke's tone was teasing but it still made Lexa gulp slightly in anticipation.

Instead of teasing back she decided to be honest. "Not even a little bit."

"Just one hour?"

"Just one hour."

Clarke gave a dramatic sigh. "Okay fine, but don't keep me waiting too long. You'll never know what secrets I may find while you're away." Lexa was less concerned than she should have been.

 

* * *

 

The thirty minute walk to and from Indra's office was normally a welcome activity that allowed Lexa to clear her mind and to think. She would spend the time filling her mind with story plots and character generalizations. She would put herself into the stories and try to figure out what it was that she would feel, what it was her characters would end up feeling as she put their emotions onto paper. It was a walk she often adored and yet she found herself sitting in a cab on her way back home.

And yet the return ride home felt longer to her than had she been walking.

She had walked into Indra's office with a steely determination to get in and of that office as quickly as possible so that she could get back to the girl waiting for her back home. She shook Indra's hand in a greeting and kept the pleasantries to a minimum which she was positive that the older woman hadn't minded one bit. But as she grabbed a pen to sign her name to paper two words caught her eye. Alexandria Woodson.

Okay, so it wasn't so much two words as it had been her author's name. The talk with Anya came crashing back down, pulling Lexa out of the fantasy her night and her morning had become and threw her back down into the distasteful dirt of reality. She needed to tell Clarke and she needed to tell her as soon as she got back.

It's why the car ride home seemed to drag by, why seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like roughly earned hours. Each spin of the wheel was a foot closer to home and a foot closer to an outcome that she was uncertain of. She tried to sit there imagining how she would feel if she were in Clarke's shoes. She tried to think about what she would want to hear that would best minimize the damage done so that their relationship could repair itself and move forward in this new world of complete honesty.

By the time she had walked up to her apartment she had had a plan. She was going to sit Clarke down and explain to her first that she had lied when she told her that she wasn't a recognizable author and then she would explain why it was that she didn't like to tell people who she was. She wanted to explain how this omission snowballed into something larger but had been entirely unintentional. She wanted to tell Clarke that she couldn't fathom the idea of the blonde seeing her any differently and why it made her scared to tell her who she was when she was working and how sorry she was. She would apologize over and over, as much as it would take to make Clarke see that she meant it. She would take the crying, or the screaming, or whatever Clarke threw at her and she would not complain, she would take it. She had a plan, damnit. But like all good plans, it seemed, it fell apart the moment she opened her front door.

Clarke sat on the couch in the clothing she had worn the evening before, though her hair was now thrown up in some haphazard ponytail held together with two pens that she had recognized from having come from her desk drawer. But those pens weren't the only things that Clarke had in her possession that had been housed in that very desk.

No. It was the stack of pages being clutched by white knuckles that suddenly had Lexa frozen mid step with wide eyes and a feeling of overwhelming dread. She didn't have to ask Clarke what it was that she was holding, Lexa could tell what it was immediately by the overly bent pages and the series of neon colored tabs sticking out in every which direction. The pages were opened to what appeared to be page twenty if Lexa's memory served her correctly. It had a red tab stuck towards the top of the page that seemed to mark an error observed over some small fact that had been written incorrectly according to something from book two.

"Lexa," Clarke's voice was tight and constricted and it sounded very much like she was struggling to keep a calmness to it. "What the fuck is this?"

Last night, just as Anya had stepped into the bathroom, Lexa had remembered feeling as one might just before a car crash where everything was serene and in place without any hint at all of there being anything that was about to go wrong. That was not how she felt now. How she felt now was as if she were right in the thick of a collision she was too late to prevent.

Her heart clenched in her chest making it feel as if she were unable to breathe and for a moment she wondered if it would ever be capable again of supplying blood to the rest of her major organs. She felt as if something rough had rammed itself forcefully into her chest. Her mind spun and twisted and flailed and provided her no means of figuring out what to say in response.

"This is not what it looks like." It wouldn't be until a few hours later that she cursed herself for those being the set of words that fell out of her mouth in a panic.

Blue eyes slowly raised to look Lexa straight in the eye with a burning fire that dared Lexa to lie to her only at her own peril. The writer would have looked away if she had the courage to do so but she found herself unable, and in fact unable to move much like a frozen deer that helplessly watched as headlights drew closer.

"So this isn't the first few chapters of what appears to be the forth book in the Commander series that I am absolutely in love with?" Then Clarke flipped forward two dozen or so more pages as she stabbed her finger against the first sentence of chapter three. "And this isn't the line that you wrote the very first day you entered my coffee shop?"

Lexa opened her mouth to say that it wasn't, as a means of damage control, but quickly shut it realizing that there wasn't a single thing that she could deny about either questioned accusation. Apparently this was exactly what it looked like. Her throat felt like sandpaper as she gulped down air, unable to form enough wetness in her mouth to quench her thirst. "You're right, it is."

Clarke had a surprised look in her eyes that told Lexa that she had expected the writer to try and lie to her. But her look of surprise quickly turned sour and she spoke through grit teeth. "And you have this how?" In her mind there was still a small amount of hope that the conclusion she had jumped to was somehow incorrect despite all of the signs that were clearly pointing her to the truth.

Lexa tried to choose her words carefully but nothing she wanted to say in that moment sounded right. "I have that because I wrote it." She spoke the words slowly as if it would soften the blow, though the way Clarke's eyebrows furrowed together told Lexa that it had been unsuccessful.

"You wrote this?" As Lexa nodded, the world seemed to click into place in the blonde's mind as if she were finally turning on a light in a dark room. "Lexa Woods." She seemed to weigh the name on her tongue. "Alexandria Woodson." She weighed these two words as well, trying to measure both pairs up against one another. Clarke's hands shakily landed on her mouth which had fallen open in surprise. "I'm so stupid. I am so fucking stupid."

"Clarke," Lexa nearly pleaded in response but she still found her body immobile. She wished, oh how she wished she could sit beside the blonde now and pull her in close as if their closeness would magically solve her problems. But it wouldn't, and she knew that. So maybe it was best she couldn't move at all. "You're not stupid, you're-"

"How could I not fucking see it?" Clarke shook her head incredulously, either ignoring Lexa's words altogether or not able to hear her over her own raging emotions. "Do you know how many times I've read your books?" Blue eyes were looking back at her in disbelief. "I knew your writing sounded so comfortable, so familiar, like I had known it before, like it had been a part of my life well before I met you.

"But then you sat there and told me that I wouldn't know you, like you weren't the most known author of this generation. And we debated on plot lines in your Commander series and you indulged me conversation after conversation listening to me make a fool of myself as I drooled over your brilliance. And you sat there listening to me tell you and all my friends how you were on my fucking celebrity list. And yet you said nothing."

"Clarke," Lexa begged in response and for the first time since she walked in on Clarke reading the beginning chapters of her manuscript she took a step forward and reached out only for Clarke to recoil from her outstretch hand as if it would burn her. Then she was up and out of her seat, pages falling deftly onto the floor.

"You stood there laughing with me, listening to me tell you all of my deepest secrets, holding my hand, comforting me, holding me, kissing me, feeling me up in the back room." She paused her list of defenses to shoot the writer a disgusted look. "You fucked me last night and not once in all these months did you think to tell me who you were! Was I just some game to you?"

"Of course not! You were never _just_ anything to me, Clarke. From the moment I met you I knew that you were going to be the biggest part of my life."

"Bullshit!" the blonde spat out with venom.

"It's not bullshit!" Lexa reached out again only for Clarke to step even further back and Lexa couldn't help the harsh tinge of pain that coursed through her body. "So I didn't tell you that I'm some big, famous writer. It didn't make anything else that I said to you less true. You _know_ me, Clarke. Alexandria Woodson is just some name on some stupid books that I wrote. It isn't who I am!"

But Clarke just stood there livid, whether she was unwilling to listen or didn't believe her, Lexa didn't quite know. "And how am I supposed to believe you? You just spent the last several months lying to me!"

"I didn't lie!" Lexa voice roared through the apartment in a tone that would have made most people flinch but Clarke didn't move an inch. "I didn't lie," she tried again in a much softer tone though it still contained the same bite.

"Then what would you call it?"

"I never lied to you about who I was," Lexa tried again by pleading. "Alexandria Woodson isn't who I am."

"You're just Lexa Woods?" Clarke spat mockingly with a short laugh. "You know, Finn cheated on me but at least he had the decency not to lie to me about it when I found out."

Lexa's head whipped to the side almost as if she had been physically slapped by the words and she swore that she could almost taste a hint of copper on her tongue. It was one thing to be called a liar but it was a whole different matter to be compared to that asshole. She could feel the pride within her bristle beneath the accusation of her character and she couldn't quite reign in the response that came next.

"So I didn't tell you that I am a successful writer known all around the world. Big fucking deal. Why does it matter?" She regretted it the moment she had said it, but it was the stream of tears that suddenly fell from Clarke's eyes that had her heart plummeting into her stomach. A moment passed and neither girl said anything and when Lexa did speak again her words were soft and apologetic. "Clarke, I didn't mean-"

"I thought you were different." Lexa opened her mouth to speak but Clarke just shook her head, it was her time to listen. "I stood there in your office looking at those cups thinking that maybe this was it for me, that maybe I finally found the person that most people spend their lives searching for. And then I go over to your desk to try and see what it is what you see when you write and I see the title jump out at me and I think..."

She paused to shake her head as if she detested herself with all her being in that moment. "I am nothing more than a fool who fell hard for someone who didn't even care about me enough to tell me about this huge part of her life."

"I do care, Clarke! You couldn't begin to imagine how much I-"

"Save it," Clarke said in a tone that sounded so much like dejection that Lexa could feel the air being sucked out of her lungs. "I don't want to hear any more of your lies."

Lexa could feel her body shaking under the weight of everything that was suddenly crashing down on her as she grasped desperately at what it was she was just beginning to realize that she was about to lose. "Please, Clarke, it was never meant to end up like this. I made a mistake. I should have just told you."

"Was it a mistake that you didn't tell me or a mistake that I somehow found out?" The artist seemed to seethe beneath the question.

"I don't usually tell people that I'm Alexandria Woodson because I don't want them to treat me differently. I don't want to be someone famous. I just want to be me!"

"And you thought what, Lexa? That I was this shallow person who was going to stop seeing you as this great girl that I really enjoyed being around and only saw some hot shot writer as some ticket for me to reach fame and fortune?" Clarke's words were desperate as if they were reaching out for a lifeline against a growing tide. She was drowning and Lexa had no idea how to save her.

What was she supposed to say? She thought telling Clarke would change things but she wasn't quite sure how she thought they would change. She knew Clarke well enough to know that she wasn't that type of person, so what was it that held her back. "Of course I didn't think you would try and take advantage of me. I just thought that, I don't know, maybe you wouldn't be able to see me as anything else."

"You really think so little of me?" She sounded hurt and dejected and even more destroyed than Lexa could comprehend at the moment, though it wasn't going to take her long to understand that feeling fully. "I'm not sure I can be with someone who looks at me and doesn't see me for who I really am. And honestly, Lex, I don't know who you are anymore."

It happened in slow motion. She watched Clarke pick up her jacket and her purse from the couch before making her way towards the front door. She watched her hand curl around the door knob and throw open the door. She paused there as if she were about to throw a look back over her shoulder, but the motion never came and Lexa was helpless as she watched the door close behind her.

Lexa didn't move for what could have been seconds or minutes or hours. She honestly had no idea how long she stood there staring at the white door and its silver handle. She didn't move until she finally realized what had just happened and when she did, it was so that she could fall down onto her knees as sobs thrashed through her body, wailing against the walls.

 

* * *

 

Sleep didn't come that night in the same way that responses to her numerous phone calls and texts remained unanswered. She had spent the entire night lying in bed awake feeling a sense of numbness wash over her. She wasn't sure if it was the shock of what had just happened or if it was her body's method of self preservation. But the longer Lexa laid in bed, the more she realized that the pillow she was hugging in her arms smelled just like Clarke and she couldn't help but pull the fabric in closer to her face.

By the time the sun had reclaimed the sky from the night all Lexa could feel was this overwhelming sense of dread and regret and again she tried calling Clarke and again the phone rang only twice before she was being directed to voicemail.

She hated how the spot beside her in bed was empty even though she had spent the last year and a half waking up just like that. She hated that there was no one for her to hold onto and that there were no blonde hairs ticking her nose. She hated that there was no yawning or groaning or laughing filling the air around her and that the only sound came from the world outside these walls. One night with Clarke ruined whatever contentedness she had with being alone because being with Clarke made her realize that there was nowhere else that she belonged. She may as well have existed in the abyss.

It's why she swallowed her pride and her fears and she found herself walking into the coffee shop down the street as she hoped, prayed, that Clarke would be there and that she would listen to her. But it wasn't a head of blonde hair that awaited her inside the shop and the look on Raven's face told her that this was the last place she belonged.

Brown eyes glared in her direction and it appeared as if her upper lip was twitching in an attempt to prevent her from snarling. Lexa had no doubt in her mind that had they not been at the girl's place of work that she would have stormed over and thrown a punch in her direction, and really, who could have blamed her?

"What can I get for you, Lexa?" It sounded as if every word was bitter as it fell from the barista's mouth but it was the name that made the writer flinch. There was no teasing name to accompany her greeting, just her name short and sweet and representing just how unwelcome she really was. It was odd, but she would have preferred an expletive over her own name in greeting by the woman in front of her.

"Raven, please, I just need to speak with her."

Raven clenched her fist against her side before talking a slow breath. "Should I get you your drink to go then?" A more direct way of letting her know that she wasn't welcome.

"Please," she tried again, pleading. "I just want to be able to apologize and let her know-"

"That will be four fifty."

Raven's tone was final and Lexa knew that she wasn't going to get what she came in here for and she could feel her heart aching. She hoped that the sadness in her face conveyed the apology to the girl she considered a friend in the ways words never could. "I'm sorry," she said in the smallest voice she had as she handed over a five dollar bill knowing that it wasn't enough.

Not another word was said as Raven went to make her drink and Lexa couldn't help but keep an eye on the girl, fully expecting her to spit in her coffee but the girl made no such attempt and instead handed Lexa her drink with a look that told her to leave.

"I'm sorry," she tried again but the barista's face didn't soften beneath her words. With a small sigh Lexa turned to leave as she took a large drink of her coffee. Within an instant, dark liquid was spraying everywhere. The taste that filled her tongue could be described as rancid at best and assaulted her tongue with this overwhelmingly unpleasant favor that had her gagging.

"What?" Raven asked with a smug grin. "A large earl gray tea isn't what you ordered?"

Lexa hung her head low as she remembered the first time she had entered the coffee shop ordering just that and the long exchange that had followed between the two of them. In short, this was Raven reminding her that she was most definitely an asshole. She would have been lying if she said that she didn't walk out of that coffee shop a little broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, maybe this isn't the ending to the chapter you wanted and maybe now some of you wished that I would have waited to post this chapter until I completely finished up the story. But, as most of you know, I am never one to leave any of my stories with an unhappy ending. So fear not, a happy Clexa is and always will be endgame for me.
> 
> Feel free to bring out the pitchforks to the comment section below. The plan is to have chapter 8 out by December 4th.


	8. A Million Reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So in writing this chapter I was almost sure that it was going to be shorter than a normal chapter but it actually turned into a pretty decent sized one. I also didn't think I would be writing a flashback but that said, this story has seemed to have gotten away from me at every turn. So without further ado, I present to you guys the final chapter. Enjoy!

> I bow down to pray  
>  I try to make the worst seem better  
>  Lord, show me the way  
>  To cut through all his worn out leather  
>  I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away  
>  But baby, I just need one good one to stay
> 
> -A Million Reasons by Lady Gaga

The beginning of February brought with it reds and whites and pinks and plans made by happy couples and hopefully individuals. The air was clean and crisp and the remnants of snow were nonexistent, washing away as if snowmen and snowflakes never existed. The sun outside shined and attempted to cut through the cold as if promising that the harshness of the winter was on the verge of ending and yet a storm continued to brew for a writer whose mind would not stop thinking and whose phone calls remained unanswered.

Three days. Three days had come and gone since Clarke had stormed out of her front door and a voice in the back of Lexa's head whispered that it wasn't just the front door that she walked out of. Three days were filled by countless phone calls and numerous voicemails until a voice on the other end of the phone finally responded to the writer only to say that the mailbox that she had been trying to reach was full. Three days of tossing and turning and despising how empty her bed felt. Three days of bad thoughts and even worse habits. Three seemed like a significant number of days. Didn't an entire religion speak about the wonders of how things could change in three days? Was something that was dead not supposed to resurrect?

Her head pounded against her skull as she pulled herself out of bed to repeat the same habit that she had insisted upon when returning from Arkadia with the taste of spoiled something on her tongue. She had reached into the depths of her cabinet, though now the bottle was front and center and easily available and much lighter than it had been two days ago, and she had poured herself a glass, as she did now.

The dark brown liquid swashed itself around the edges of the glass as if waving her forward, welcoming her in. She could smell the burnt amber notes that stung lightly at the base of her nose and she could almost feel the burn of it down her throat. Her mind thudded again as images of blonde and blue and alabaster flashed through her mind and she wanted nothing more than to drink, to forget all of it.

She was weak in so many ways, or at least that's what her mind told her over and over again, unrelenting and unforgiving. Love is weakness, her weakness. She snorted at the thought, succumbing to the insistence of it before she defeatedly lifted the glass to drown in the whiskey that filled her cup. In all honesty she wasn't quite sure she loved the taste of whiskey more so than she liked the aesthetic of it and how movies and tv shows told her that powerful men drank the aged brown liquid as if making it her drink f choice would make her more like them, strong and unwilling to give a shit. Or maybe it was just the fact that it burned going down and warmed her chest as it settled like a hug so desperately needed.

She tilted the glass that sat cold against her lower lip, the fumes of it already filling her mouth and preparing her for the taste but just as she moved to tip the glass further a song blasting from a car radio down below reached her ears and she froze. She didn't know the name of the song, but she knew the song. It was a months old top forty hit that she didn't quite know the words to.

She could see Clarke smiling carefree as she danced to the song on the other end of the coffee counter not caring if anyone was watching. And then she caught Lexa staring and she danced more wickedly suddenly very interested in the fact that she was being watched, though Lexa could see now that it wasn't just that _someone_ was watching but rather because of _who_ was watching. The memory lasted longer than the music did in the room as the idled car drove away and Lexa could swear she could hear her phone ringing while Costia sat on the other end of the line.

_"So, Lex, I was kind of hoping that maybe we can get together sometime. It's been months since I've seen you and I just," there was a long pause and a sigh on the other end of the line, "I miss you."_

_Lexa looked back at the white coffee cup in her hands and stared intently at the anatomical heart that was drawn in constriction and she felt for a moment like something was squeezing the heart in her chest much like the heart in the drawing. And she realized in that moment that it wasn't just then that she had felt this way but that she had felt it since Costia had left, hell since well before that. She felt trapped and restricted and she wanted the heart in her hands to beat again, to be free, to be capable of loving again._

_"Actually, Cos, I don't really think us meeting is a great idea." She laughed, it was quiet but it wasn't forced. "You know, if you would have called me a month ago then maybe, no definitely, I would have said yes. But now? I don't know. I just kind of feel like what we were together ran its course and it's finally time for us both to just let this go."_

_There was another long pause and Lexa was about to pull the phone away from her ear to make sure that someone was still on the other end when Costia finally spoke. "So what happened a month ago that changed everything?" Her voice held a sad curiosity that used to make Lexa's heart clench._

_Lexa looked back down at the cup in her hand and she couldn't really explain what it was that had changed, it was one of the biggest lies she had ever told herself. "I just finally realized that I no longer wanted to be someone that I'm not. I no longer want to be just content with life, I want to be happy and to lose myself in it all." The words sat heavy on her chest as she said them because she had no idea what they meant, she just knew that they were true. "I really do wish you the best, Cos."_

_"Thanks, Lexie. And I really do hope that you find that person in you that you are looking for. And hey, maybe if you do find yourself then maybe you can give me a call. I'd like to maybe meet her again." She said 'again' but Lexa knew that Costia had never really met_ her.

By the time Lexa had pulled herself out of her memory, her glass was sitting in her lap and the fingers that held it itched. She had two choices in that moment. She could either give up and take another drink of what was in that glass or she could set the glass down and do something far more productive with her hands.

It wasn't much of a choice at all. The glass clanked against the living room table as Lexa pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down a few words onto paper before reading them back to herself and feeling something swell deep in her chest. She walked into her office to pull out her laptop and brought it back to the couch that sat right in front of her front door. She waited for the buzz of her machine to stir as she looked over the screen and at the silver door handle.

Clarke's presence had been the one thing that made her write again and it seemed that her absence was going to have the exact same effect. She read over the words she had written once more before she turned back to look at her laptop. Her fingers began typing at an unbelievable pace in some hopeless attempt to catch up with her mind. The whiskey sat beside the paper untouched. It was never much of a choice.

_Someone I loved gave me a box full of darkness. This, too, was a gift._

 

* * *

 

This.

This right here was one of the reasons that Costia had left her.

If anyone asked Lexa what day it was she would have been unable to tell them. Hell, if someone had entered her apartment she probably wouldn't have even noticed them. So really it could have been days that had passed since she had picked up her laptop and began to furiously type away, she had no idea. She wrote, she ate, she wrote, she wrote some more, she used the bathroom, she wrote, she trashed an idea, she ate, she wrote, she slept then she woke up to start it all over again. Lexa probably could have counted the number of times she slept but when she was in her writing mode like this it wasn't as if she kept normal sleeping hours.

She ate and slept and did whatever else was bodily necessary all on the time dictated to her by her writing. It wasn't as if she got this way often, or at least not for large extended periods of time but it usually happened once she decided upon the ending of her book and it wouldn't stop until the last page of the book was complete.

It was why she missed the sound of her door opening and shutting and the numerous calls of her name. In fact it wasn't until a hand waved itself in front of her computer screen that she actually noticed she wasn't alone and jumped up in surprise.

"Jesus! What the hell?"

"I prefer 'Anya', or maybe even 'the Superior Woods Child'. 'Jesus' is a bit much."

Lexa rolled her eyes, annoyed by the distraction and her sister's awful sense of humor. "Is there something that you need?" Her eyes flashed back to the computer screen littered with words desperate to get back to them.

"Well," Anya started just as annoyed as Lexa, "five days ago I found you in here drinking yourself stupid and after I finally pried out of you what happened you kicked me out and told me you needed time. But when I tried calling you earlier, your phone went straight to voicemail and I wanted to make sure that you weren't dead."

Lexa's eyebrows furrowed together as she looked at her phone on the counter and her heart swelled anxiously. "It must have died," she realized and her mind immediately began to wonder whether or not Clarke had called her back but she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. "I'm finishing up the story."

"Ah," her sister hummed. "So you're in your own little writer's world."

"Yup," Lexa said, hoping that her sister took this as an invitation to leave. But Anya did no such thing as she plopped herself down onto the chair in front of her. Lexa turned to her sister to let out a growl but there was something that flashed across Anya's eyes that had her stop. "What's wrong, Ahn?"

"Nothing," she said with a wave of her hand before reaching over to grab the untouched glass of whiskey and pulling a sip. "I just figured that maybe I could read the chapters you've completed while you write."

There wasn't much that could pull Lexa from one of her writing moods but a concern for her sister was one of them. She bit back the sigh as she placed her laptop onto the table. "What's wrong?" she asked a second time but this time in a tone that said her question was nonnegotiable and needed to be answered.

"I broke up with Raven," she muttered as she drew in another drink from the glass.

"You did what?" When Anya didn't respond Lexa knew her answer. "Why would you do that?"

Anya let out a laugh, an unhumorous laugh done into her drink before taking another drink. Lexa knew that look and one glass was not going to be enough. "A girl messes with my baby sister and you really have to ask me why I wanted to break up?"

Lexa flinched at the answer. She felt guilty enough for ruining her own relationship, she didn't need the added weight of ruining another. "Anya," she warned in a tone that resembled nothing resembling being comforting, "she gave me a shitty drink as a way to call me an asshole. It was a dick move but I understand why she did it. There's so many worse things I would have done to Nia if I had the chance."

Brown eyes looked away and stared at some spot on Lexa's coffee table, unable to look her sister in the eye. "It's not like it was completely one-sided," Anya admitted with a sour look. "It's not like she was thrilled that I kept your secret from her. In her mind I helped break her best friend's heart."

Lexa had been so consumed by her writing that she hadn't really felt her own emotions for the last few days. That last sentence brought it all crashing back down and for a moment she felt as if she were going to be sick. "She's heartbroken?"

"She's an idiot," Anya grumbled, another swing consumed.

Lexa couldn't help but bristle at the comment. "She's not an idiot."

Anya laughed though this time she just sounded bitter. "Yeah, yeah she is. I mean I get her being a little upset but to just storm out of here and refuse to see you? I mean look at you! You're just as heartbroken as she is and yet here you are standing up for her. She doesn't deserve you."

Anya's tone rose the longer her tirade went. And normally, normally Lexa would have been touched by the sentiment but she didn't have it in herself to feel that this time. "No, sis, this time I fucked up. Just because it wouldn't have been a big deal to you or to me it doesn't mean that it wasn't to her." Lexa sighed and a part of her wanted to reach over and take a drink out of her sister's glass, but she didn't. "I've had a lot of time to think it over. Her last big relationship, the guy cheated on her and lied about it for months. So yeah, I wasn't cheating on her but I wasn't being honest with her. I can understand her being a little more sensitive to that fact than other people." She sighed again, tired and a little defeated. "I just wish I would have seen that sooner."

"Her leaving though, that's on her." Anya's words came out heavy and with conviction as if she were convinced that she would have to hammer this point in over and over to get her sister to see that. Lexa just gave a slight laugh.

"Yeah, I know." She didn't miss the look of slight shock in her sister's eyes on the quick acceptance. "Clarke taught me that relationships ending are never just one person's fault. But I don't want to lose her and I'll be damned if I let her just walk away from what we can be without at least doing what I can to apologize for not being honest."

It was strange seeing her sister look at her the way she was currently looking at her. Her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes seemed to be looking at her as if she was truly seeing her for the first time as something other than just her little sister. "You've changed a lot since you've met her," she mused out loud after a few minutes. She didn't say whether it was a good thing or bad thing, at least not directly. Her approval spoke volumes of that instead. "So how can I help? What are you doing to try and win her back?"

Lexa gave her sister a small smile before reaching over to grab her laptop and lifted it in the air, her grand gesture. "I'm doing the one thing I do best."

Anya just grinned before finishing off what was left of her whiskey. "Print me out what you have and let's get started."

 

* * *

 

"I'm pretty sure that your readers are going to hate you for this ending."

Lexa looked down at her sister who sat in her one seater sofa chair, a spot she had made her home for the last four days as she diligently read every word that Lexa had written out without much complaint.

"I felt like it was the ending that Alicia deserved."

Anya just snorted. "The ending Alicia deserved or the ending that you thought you deserved after you hurt Clarke?" Lexa shrugged in response, they both already knew the answer. "They hated Costia's character after the last book and now you're having them turn against the Commander? This isn't the ending we discussed last month."

Again Lexa was at a loss for words. "Things were different last month," was all that she could think to say as she reached out her hand for the bound manuscript.

With some reluctance Anya placed the pages in a manila envelope before handing it to Lexa but she refused to let go of it even as her younger sister tried to pull it away. "You do realize that if Clarke leaks this copy online that you are going to be in a lot of trouble for this. You will have to find a way to pay back every cent of our advance for this book." It was a warning, a pleading for Lexa to think things through. Her head over her heart. That option no longer seemed possible for her anymore.

"I trust her." It was the most sure Lexa had sounded of something in the last two weeks. It was the only reason that Anya let go of the envelope with one last nervous glance.

 

* * *

 

The bell rang loudly in Lexa's ears as it announced her arrival in the one place that had started it all. Her head swam with more emotions than she knew what to do with and her heart pounded quickly in her chest as if trying to catch up with each one. She couldn't help but feel as if she were standing in enemy territory, on land she was no longer welcome.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Apparently it was more than just a feeling.

"Please, Raven, I didn't come here to fight." Lexa held up her hands in surrender, though her right hand still held her pages which felt heavy above her shoulders.

"So you want another tea then?" The barista said it with a sneer, though her hands motioned to the tea selection behind her as if she were legitimately offering.

"I came here to give Clarke this," Lexa said as she waved the package in her hand, drawing the girl's attention to it for the first time. She looked at it apprehensively as if she expected something evil to live within the confines of the yellowed paper. "It's the completed manuscript of book four."

Raven's eyes widened slightly as she looked at what many fan girls might have considered the holy grail. Lexa had never paused to wonder if Raven had ever read her stories before but the look on her face now suggested that she had. But Raven wiped the look quickly off her face and moved to looking disinterested. "You must be pretty full of yourself if you think that any of us still want to read that." Lexa knew her poker face enough to tell that she was lying, though she seemed to wish she hadn't been.

She took a moment to take in a deep breath as she steadied herself for what she was sure was going to be a long winded speech; she didn't hear the ding of a bell go off behind her. "It was never my intention to hurt Clarke. At first I didn't tell her who I was because I had just met her and I hate telling people who I am, it's why I write under an alias. People treat you differently, they look at you and they only see that one thing and it's hard for them to see anything else which just makes me feel like I can't _be_ anything else. And from the moment I laid my eyes on Clarke and she looked back at me I knew that I didn't want her to see anything else but who I really was.

"And then the more I got to know her, the more she got to know me, the more I didn't want things to change. I couldn't fathom the idea of things between us regressing. It was dumb and it was selfish and it was stupid, but I didn't want to risk us. I didn't want to risk what we could have been."

Raven looked at her without saying a word, she just let her speak, she stood there with the look on her face never changing. "If I knew that Clarke finding out would have hurt her the way it did," she paused and instead shook her head. What good was it talking about things that couldn't be changed? "I should have told her sooner. And I know that you probably don't trust me but I hope you can believe me when I tell you that I didn't lie about anything else. None of the last few months have been an act for me. And she was never a game to me. She never could be."

There was a long pause before the barista's eyes shifted down to the pages in her hand. "And that story is going to somehow tell her all of that?"

Lexa wanted to say yes but the truth of the matter was that she didn't know. "I hope it says all the things I haven't been able to tell her." She looked down at the packet as she shifted to hold it in both of her hands as her thumbs moved in circles across the edges. "Could you please just give it to her?"

Raven looked at her completely torn, for the first time allowing her emotions to play on her face. Lexa could see the slight bits of anger and hurt mixed in with the etches of understanding and the tiny embers of something that looked like the beginning of forgiveness. But it was in her eyes that Lexa saw the fierce loyalty she had for her friend and Lexa could see the rejection before it could happen. But as Raven opened her mouth it was another voice that spoke instead, strong and a little husky from right behind her.

"I'll give it to her."

Lexa froze and it felt almost as if every molecule in her body had become petrified. She could feel the dread washing over her and she wished deeply for the ability to vanish into thin air. It took a moment for her to turn and her voice sounded just as scared as she suddenly felt. "Mr. Griffin, how long have you been standing there?"

He stood there towering over her with a look in his eyes that suggested that he was trying to read and dissect the woman that had hurt his little girl. He seemed to be searching for something and he didn't speak until he found it. "Long enough to hear everything that I needed to hear." Then a small smile lifted at the corner of his lips, "and didn't I tell you to call me Jake?"

The relief that washed over Lexa was better than anything she could have asked for. In those last handful of words she was granted the ability to breathe again and she wondered how long it had been since she had fully taken air into her lungs. She understood that she still had a ways to go until she was actually forgiven by the one person who mattered but the look on Clarke's father's face was enough to tell her that at least someone here didn't hate her.

Lexa gave the man a grateful smile and she prayed that it conveyed all of the emotions that she was unable to say. She handed over the pages to him as if she were giving him the most treasured thing that she owned. And as it might be her one shot at redemption, it kind of was. "Thank you," she didn't even mind that she almost sounded out of breath when she said it.

Jake offered her a larger smile before he placed a strong comforting hand on her shoulder, it made her suddenly ache with a feeling of missing her own father. "I have seen a change in Clarke since you came along. She seems happier and so much lighter. And you may have messed up but that doesn't mean that you aren't good for my daughter." Jake smiled brighter and shook his head slightly. "Clarke, like her mother, tends to run a little hot tempered so there is a slight chance that she also didn't handle the situation with a level head when she found out. So just promise me that if I do give this to her that you will give her a little more time to sort out whatever is going on in her head?"

Lexa nodded vigorously. "It takes as long as it takes," she said, mimicking something her father had always told her when she was a kid. And she would wait because she was never more certain of anything as much as she was certain that Clarke Griffin was most definitely worth whatever wait she would have to have.

"Then I will give it to her."

Lexa couldn't help herself as she flung her arms around the man in front of her. She wasn't sure she had ever met a more kind soul and she understood immediately where it was Clarke got that from. It was his hearty laugh that had her pulling away a little embarrassed about her enthusiasm. "Thanks again."

Lexa stepped forward to leave the coffee shop when one more thought popped into her head and had her spinning as she walked back to a more relieved looking mechanic. "Look," she said in a tone that was no longer apologetic but held in it a seriousness that demanded respect and it seemed to make Raven's eyes widen in slight fear at her change in demeanor. Though it could have been the look that Lexa had given her. Grown men had shriveled away underneath that stare. "Whatever is going on between you an my sister, you both need to get your heads out of your asses and fix it."

Brown eyes gawked at her as if she was suddenly appalled at Lexa's audacity but Lexa cut her off before she could protest. "No, listen to me. You're mad at Anya for taking my side but you're wrong if you think my sister is unjustified for doing so. I see how loyal you are to Clarke, Ray, and I very much admire you for it. It's why I'm more impressed than mad at that stunt you pulled with that shitty ass tea you guys serve." Raven couldn't help the small smirk at her comment, but Lexa wasn't done.

"As loyal as you are to Clarke, my sister is even more loyal than that to me. I promise you that you will never meet anyone more loyal than my sister. And while she may never show it, you will never meet anyone more willing to do whatever it takes to make the people she loves happy. If you play your cards right, she may one day be more loyal to you than she is to me. And if you fuck that up? I promise you, it will be the worst mistake of your life."

Lexa turned again without letting Raven utter a single word in response. Instead she walked towards the exit, pausing only to give a high five to the hand that Jake offered her for that last speech with laughter in his eyes.

"The mighty Raven Reyes has been schooled," Jake joked as Lexa walked out the door. And Lexa sighed a small breath of relief.

 

* * *

 

There is a helplessness associated with waiting. Maybe it comes from an inability to do anything more than wait for something to happen. And the longer the wait, the more helpless she felt as she sat in her office staring at the cups she had on her wall as if looking at them long enough would will the owner to call the phone that she finally charged. But so far all she received was a call from her publisher asking her how the book was coming along. She ignored it, not really sure what to say.

Day one after she had given the book to Jake had her on edge. Every sound in the hallway, every vibration from her phone, every knock she could hear in the complex had her jumping up in hopes that Clarke had finally decided to give her a chance to explain.

Day two was worse. Day two had Lexa opening up her front door just to look down the hallway to make sure that Clarke wasn't there. It had her walking around her apartment to find the best combination of wifi and cellular signal just to make sure that she wouldn't miss a call or text. It had her glancing out her window for any glimpse of blonde hair. There was an inability to sit still.

Day three felt draining. She was so sick of her phone that every time she looked at it and it didn't ring, she had this overwhelming urge to throw it against the wall. She had this insatiable urge to walk down the street near the coffee shop just to see if she could somehow bump into her. It had her lacing her shoes and sighing at herself for her inability to remain cool and collected. It also came with a harsh, furious pounding on her door three seconds after she stood up to leave.

Lexa's heart pounded in her chest even louder than the knocking at the front door. She was well beyond the notion that she should pretend that she wasn't a nervous wreck as she threw the door open and her heart sung in elation even despite the scene in front of her.

Her mind was able to recognize the fury in the blonde's eyes as she pushed past Lexa into her apartment, knocking her shoulder into the writer's and pushing her back slightly. It was angry and passionate and Lexa didn't have a single thought in her head other than sweet relief over the fact that she was finally here. She didn't even recognize the pages that Clarke had in her hand until she slammed it down onto the thick wooden coffee table.

"Lexa," she said with an incredulous tone in her voice, "what the fuck is this?"

Lexa couldn't help but flinch. The last time that Lexa heard those words from that girl's mouth, it didn't end well for her. "It's the fourth chapter of my book," she said. It was a much better answer than the one she gave last time. It was, after all, what it looked like.

But the answer didn't seem to cure Clarke's anger so much as fuel it. "The Commander leaves Eliza at the fucking Mountain to save her people and defeat the Mountain Men by herself with only a handful of Sky People left? She takes Cage's deal?"

It took Lexa a moment to realize what it was that had Clarke so upset. At the moment it wasn't the fact that she lied to Clarke, it wasn't the fact that Lexa broke her heart. It was about the ending of the book that she had written. She has to ignore the voice in her head that was trying to pat her on the back for apparently writing a book so well written that it elicited that type of response and instead tried to coax the blonde back down. "She has an obligation to her people," Lexa tried. It was the political answer.

"That's so bullshit!" Clarke practically roared as she threw her hands up passionately. "I mean come on! What if Eliza loses? Then the Mountain Men not only have the ability to walk on land again in the open air but they still have missiles at their disposal! There is no fucking way that the Commander takes that deal. I mean sure, they won't have to capture anymore of her people for their blood but it's only a matter of time before the Mountain Men completely take over everything! What the hell is the point of all her hard work building the coalition if she just allows it to be taken over?"

"I-"

Lexa cut herself off as she looked at Clarke and saw the disbelief on her face. It was like she couldn't believe that Lexa could have missed something that was so obvious. She opened her mouth to give an explanation but she couldn't really give one, not after the point the blonde had made. It was a foolish move on the Commander's part, one that someone so calculating and smart wouldn't make. "It didn't seem right to have Alicia and Elyza end up together," she stopped herself from saying more but the words rang loudly in the silence _after you walked out on us_.

The anger in Clarke's eyes quickly fell to guilt. They both knew exactly what Lexa meant. "I didn't think I would ever be able to ship Alicia with anyone other than Cynthia." A small guilty smile pulled at the corner of her lip. "Octavia bought me a Alithia t-shirt just before the third book came out and I may have worn it when I read your last book and fell into despair when they broke up." It was definitely more a look of embarrassed guilt in Clarke's eyes now.

"And now?" Lexa asked with her heart fluttering in her chest.

"I'm team Alicia and Elyza all the way." Lexa couldn't help but feel as if the weight that had been sitting on her chest the last two weeks had begun to fall away. "Though there is no great ship name for them. You didn't really think that part through." Clarke gave her a soft smile before leaning down to pick up the manuscript before handing it back to Lexa. The pages seemed to vibrate in her hand. "Please don't let them end this way." There was more in her eyes though and they said what her words didn't. _Please don't let us end that way._

"I'm sorry," the writer said as she took the book from Clarke's hand and placed it back onto the table. "I shouldn't have lied to you."

The look in Clarke's eyes changed again with the move in topic and Lexa's heart broke in her chest over the pain that sat deep in those pools of blue. "How could you not trust me? I mean I understand you not telling me right away, it's just," Clarke paused to suck in a broken breath of air, "I thought that we had something special."

"We did," Lexa said immediately but the hurt in Clarke's eyes made her realize the mistake in her tenses. "We do!"

"Then why wouldn't you tell me?" Lexa could see that it was the one question that had been haunting Clarke ever since she had found her book within the desk from her office.

"I was scared," she answered honestly and hung her head, unable to look into those blue eyes. Soft fingers brushed against her chin making Lexa shiver as they pulled her gaze up, forcing her to look Clarke in the eye again, blue eyes that pleaded for a better explanation.

"I was going to tell you as soon as I got back home that day." There was a disbelieving look that fell across Clarke's face that had Lexa reaching out to grab Clarke's hand still at her side. "I swear to you I was. I had a whole speech prepared and everything. But then I get inside and-"

"And I was already reading the book," Clarke finished with a small nod of her head, though the sadness hadn't fully left her eyes.

"I was afraid that telling you meant that things between us wouldn't be the same. I was afraid that you would look at me and no longer see this awkward girl who has to yell at you to have dinner with me while I feel you up in your boss' office." Clarke smiled at that, Lexa couldn't help but mirror it. "I didn't want you to see some famous author. I wasn't kidding when I said that I wasn't Alexandria Woodson. I never wrote any of these stories to be famous, I just wanted to write a story that I enjoyed and that hopefully other people would enjoy. I wanted to write something that could inspire people to go after the things they want and to not be afraid to be who they are. And if I hurt you in keeping that from you then I am so sorry."

Lexa's eyes drifted closed as she felt a palm brush against her cheek and she couldn't help but lean into it. It smelled of vanilla, lavender and something uniquely Clarke. She has been unsure if she would ever have the opportunity to breathe that scent in again and to get it now felt almost like a gift.

"I'm sorry too." The three words had Lexa's eyes open in an instant as she saw the look of sorrow in those blue eyes. "I just, I saw that book and I couldn't help but feel like you had been lying to me. And I felt insecure and embarrassed and hurt. And I used those things as an excuse to justify running away when I did. But I ran. I ran when I should have stayed."

Clarke took a deep breath and Lexa placed her own hand over the one that held her cheek. "I ran and I am so sorry, Lex. I was an idiot."

Lexa couldn't help the smile that was on her face. "You're not an idiot, Clarke."

The blonde just smiled in turn. "I ran away from the one person that makes me feel the same way that my mom seems to feel when she looks at my dad." The confession made the writer's heart flutter and a warmness filled her chest. "If that doesn't make me an idiot then I'm not sure what would."

"Then I'm an idiot too," she declared as they both smiled guiltily at one another.

"Well then maybe since we are both idiots we need to lay down some ground rules for this relationship."

Lexa wanted to laugh with how giddy she was feeling. "Rules like how we shouldn't lie to one another?"

"And how we shouldn't run away just because things seem hard," Clarke added with a small grin.

"So we are honest people who stay put?" Lexa asked cheekily.

"We can do more than just stay put," Clarke said and not a moment later Lexa was being pulled down into a kiss that seemed to light her body on fire as every nerve in her body seemed to sing in harmonic joy.

Lexa got lost in the kiss. She held Clarke in her arms and her lips moved softly against the blonde's and she had no concept of or really any interest in time. She was exactly where she belonged in the arms of the girl that she -

"Oh shit!" Clarke said as she pulled away and Lexa couldn't help the feeling of alarm that rose through her chest and up the base of her throat. Clarke looked at her apologetically. "Raven and I sort of made a deal and now I have to ask you a favor."

Lexa froze but her curiosity got the best of her. "What's the favor?"

Clarke let out a deep sigh but her arms pulled Lexa's body closer and the feel of the artist's body against hers seemed to soothe her in a way that not much else could. "Raven may have been reading your story over my shoulder," she threw an apologetic glance her way, "and she wants to know if you could name the character Rachel after her."

Lexa laughed. "You mean after the mechanic from the Ark?" Clarke just rolled her eyes and nodded. "I guess I did loosely base the character off of her."

Clarke chuckled at that. "Well you sure seemed to capture her cockiness and her self assuredness in her own abilities."

Lexa grinned as she thought the same thing. She was about to agree when she suddenly became curious of something else. "What did Raven have to do in return?"

Her question was followed by a knocking sound that seemed to be coming from the other end of the hall and it made Clarke smile. "I told her that she needed to suck it up and apologize to your sister for being an asshole to the both of you."

The warm feeling returned to her chest as she thought about seeing her sister smile again, something she had been missing for the last week. "It sounds like Raven is the one who benefits completely from this deal of yours."

Clarke let out an exasperated huff. "I don't know what it is about that girl, but it seems like all of our deals just end up benefiting her in the end."

Lexa thought about that for a moment before a sly smile graced her face and Clarke looked at her as if very much interested in hearing exactly what she had just thought of. "At least now you've finally beat her in a bet."

It took a moment for the realization of what Lexa was referring to sink in and Clarke practically jumped up in victory causing the both of them to laugh. "Thank God you're hot," Clarke said when their laughter died down and Lexa couldn't help herself as she leaned back down to capture Clarke's lips with her own.

 

* * *

 

The little coffee shop down the street from Lexa's apartment was filled with pastel colors fit for Easter which had just ended and was now passing itself off as the colors of spring. It sat there welcoming in the people that dared weather the rain outside, though it seemed as if there wasn't anyone around to brave it as there was only one other customer in sight. Lexa couldn't stop the smile on her face even if she wanted to. The cool water that dripped down her coat could do nothing to dampen her mood.

The air around her was filled with the soft scent of coffee, chocolate and cinnamon. There was something about the concentration of the coffee to cinnamon ratio in the air that reminded her of a very happy childhood. And it also reminded her of a blonde that took up just as much of her thoughts as the blonde's clothing items were beginning to take up her closet. It may as well have been her second home.

"Hey Drippy, I hope you plan to mop up after yourself."

Lexa just shrugged her shoulders before she gave her friend a grin. "I never did get you back for that tea incident. I figured I'd stand in the rain for a bit and get nice and soppy before I came in to ruin your evening."

Raven gave a large sigh before she turned to the customer sitting on top of the counter and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading to the back in search of a mop. Lexa smiled at the red tinge coating the tops of her sister's cheeks before she pulled herself off of the table. "Aww, aren't you two cute?"

Anya shot her a glare that just make Lexa more amused. "You're one to talk. Did I not walk in on you and Clarke feeding each other muffins this morning and giggling?"

The writer just shook her head and let out a sigh. She really needed to take away her sister's key to her apartment. "I do not giggle! I'm a grown woman, not a five year old." She crossed her arms over her chest in protest and immediately felt like she was exactly what she claimed not to be.

Anya snorted. "You so giggle."

"I do not!"

"You should have heard the noise she made last night," came a voice from the back of the shop and Lexa was torn between wanting to smile and wanting to glare at her girlfriend for the embarrassment that seemed to be growing at her comment. "You were right about that ticklish spot, Ahn." The glare, she most definitely went for the glare.

"It sounds kind of like a squeal, doesn't it?" Anya asked as she shot Clarke a smile.

"Crossed with like a howl maybe?" Clarke added with her fingers on her chin as if she were really thinking about it.

"You're right! That's exactly what it sounds like!"

"I don't like that you two get along," Lexa said as she eyed Clarke and Anya back and forth with a look of trepidation. In all honesty she was very much loving the fact that the two most important people in her life got along so well, even if it was at her own expense. She hated the way Anya and Costia had barely tolerated one another. She would make herself the butt of every joke if it meant that things between Anya and Clarke continued on as great as they were. She couldn't remember a time when all the aspects of her life had come together so well and she didn't think it was possible to be any happier than she was now.

"You love that we get along," Clarke said as she sauntered over to give her a warm, welcoming hug but just before she could reach Lexa jumped away from her and held her hands out in warning.

"I'm wet," she explained at the confused look on Clarke's face, one that turned to a sly smile that Lexa knew all too well and she was rolling her eyes even before the words fell out of Clarke's mouth.

"I think I remember you telling me that same thing last night." Clarke wiggled her eyebrows suggestively as Raven came in laughing at the disturbed look on Anya's face.

"Listen here, Buffy, could you maybe not talk about my sister and you doing those things? It was bad enough that you came in with that love bite on your collarbone this morning."

Clarke shot Anya a humored look before shaking her head. "You know, if you keep walking into Lex's apartment unannounced, you're probably going to walk in something you very much don't want to see."

Anya's eyes widened even more and a horrified look passed behind her eyes. "Please tell me that you two don't do it on the couch." She looked to Lexa but Lexa couldn't do much more than look away from her sister knowing that her ears were probably already turning red. "Damn it, guys! I sit on that couch!"

In turning Lexa got a good view of Raven's face who looked positively giddy and it suddenly filled Lexa with an uneasiness. "Really, Anya? I mean we had the entire gang over to your place for dinner last week and you're going to complain about sitting on their couch?"

"What the hell?" Lexa grumbled as she dragged her hands down her face, trying to remember what it was she ate at Anya's and whether she had eaten anything that had fallen off of her plate. She felt a little green.

"What is it with you two and tables?" Clarke asked almost as disturbed as Lexa.

Raven opened her mouth to answer but Lexa just lifted up her hand and shook her head. "No, I don't want to know."

Lexa retreated to her corner of the room as Clarke laughed and went behind the counter to grab her a cup of coffee to warm her from the coldness beginning to seep into her bones as she shrugged herself out of her wet coat. She also couldn't help but take a glance at the board and grin at it victoriously.

**Clarke Griffin is now and will always be smarter than Raven Reyes!**

Then in fine print at the bottom: **Yes, I lost a bet** followed by much neater handwriting that jumped in with **Again!**

Per their bet about the hotness of Alexandria Woodson, Raven had sighed and tried to argue with Clarke about Lexa's hotness until Anya jumped in and glared at Raven before asking her if she really thought her little sister was unattractive which just ended in Raven quickly agreeing that she had lost the bet. Then just before the month was over Clarke had made Raven a wager. If Clarke won, the sign stayed for another month. If Raven won, Clarke would finally draw a monument on the board in Raven's image. Raven chose poker as the medium of the wager. Lexa told Clarke the mechanic's tell.

"How did Indra like the new ending?"

Lexa looked up just in time to see Clarke sit down across from her and place her coffee on the table. An overly cute, cartoonish raccoon was drawn onto it as it stared lovingly at a cartoonish lion that was playing in a puddle. Lexa wasn't even sure when Clarke had found the time to draw it after she ran out of her apartment this morning crying out that she was going to be late.

"She wants to meet you, actually."

"Me?" Clarke asked, highly confused.

Lexa just grinned. "Well first off she wanted to meet the girl responsible for what she is calling the best book I have ever written." Clarke beamed at the praise. "And second, she saw the Sky Girl painting hanging in the living room and she said that she's been looking for someone new to help with cover illustrations for a couple of novels her company is about to release in a few months."

Clarke's mouth fell open and Lexa couldn't help but find the overly shocked look on her face the cutest thing she had ever seen. "Shut up! There is no way that she said that!" But Lexa only nodded before she leaned over the table to place a celebratory kiss against her girlfriend's cheek.

"Should I set up a meeting?"

"Yeah!" Clarke exclaimed as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"Great! I'll see if Indra wants to go out to dinner sometime next week."

The comment seemed to make Clarke freeze and she gave Lexa a nervous grin. "So is this sort of the equivalent to you meeting my mom?"

The question made Lexa laugh as she reached across the table for Clarke's hand as she offered her a reassuring grin in return. Clarke would never meet her father and while she may one day meet her mother, whenever it was that she came home, if she ever decided to do so, Indra was the closest thing she had to family besides Anya. And she was the closest thing that Clarke would ever get to meeting her father.

"You'll do great, babe. Plus there's no way it could go worse than the night I met your mom." Lexa cringed slightly at the memory of how she nervously spilled her wine across the table and onto Abby's lap. She had rushed to her aid only to smack into a spoon filled with mashed potatoes onto Clarke's chest. And in a haste to fix that she found herself with a napkin rubbing her girlfriend's boobs rather enthusiastically while Jake sighed and said _Not again!_ and Clarke laughed and leaned over to whisper in her ear _wasn't I the one that was supposed to feel you up in front of_ your _parents?_

"My mother loves you," Clarke said unconvincingly as Lexa shot her a disbelieving look and the blonde sighed before saying, "well at least my dad loves you." Lexa just smiled.

Love.

Those four letters had been at the forefront of her mind ever since Clarke and Lexa made up. It was in the air she breathed, against the lips she kissed, within the warmth of the body that slept against hers every night. It consumed her whole world and she was so certain of it. She loved Clarke and the way Clarke looked at her in the mornings told her that she wasn't the only one to feel it. But the word sat happily between them unspoken. It was too soon to say those three words out loud. Or at least that's what she told herself. But as Clarke leaned over and gave her another soft, barely there kiss and Lexa's body hummed she also knew that it wouldn't be long before she was unable to contain them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank everyone for all the kudos and all of the kind words on this one. Getting comments after every chapter always lifts my spirits and I'm not sure if I could have made it through this story without all of you. You guys are great.
> 
> For those of you that read my soccer AU, I have a little bit of time freeing up and I am hoping to throw out another one-shot of that series before the end of the year. For those who don't read that one, there are thoughts of something else happening but I think I'm going to hold that one close to the chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Well I hope that you guys enjoyed it. This is going to be a short story, especially compared to the last one that I wrote. Please let me know what you guys think of this. It was a lot of fun to write.
> 
> Feel free to reach out or to follow me on Tumblr. My user name is the same as it is here: [JLaw1105](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jlaw1105).


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